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posted by mrpg on Saturday December 30 2017, @07:45AM   Printer-friendly
from the nobody-thinks-of-the-dogs dept.

Trump targets Amazon in call for postal service to hike prices

U.S. President Donald Trump targeted Amazon on Friday in a call for the country's postal service to raise prices of shipments in order to recoup costs, picking another fight with the online retail giant he has criticized in the past. "Why is the United States Post Office, which is losing many billions of dollars a year, while charging Amazon and others so little to deliver their packages, making Amazon richer and the Post Office dumber and poorer? Should be charging MUCH MORE!" Trump wrote on Twitter.

The U.S. Postal Service, which runs at a big loss, is an independent agency within the federal government and does not receive tax dollars for operating expenses, according to its website. The organization makes up a significant portion of the $1.4 trillion U.S. delivery industry. Other players include United Parcel Service Inc and Fedex Corp.

[...] Amazon has shown interest in the past in shifting into its own delivery service. In 2015, the company spent $11.5 billion on shipping, 46 percent of its total operating expenses that year. In October, Bloomberg reported that Amazon was testing its own delivery service to move products more quickly out of its overcrowded warehouses and make more of them available for free two-day delivery. However, Amazon said at the time that it was using the same carrier partners to offer the program as it has used for years, including the U.S. Postal Service, UPS and FedEx.


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by lentilla on Saturday December 30 2017, @09:54AM (9 children)

    by lentilla (1770) on Saturday December 30 2017, @09:54AM (#615803)

    Raising the cost of delivering a package is exactly the wrong thing to do if your intention is to Make Your Country Great Again. You want to reduce the cost of package delivery, speed up delivery and increase the number of deliveries per week. This reduces friction in the marketplace - and the post office is an ideal; centralised; location to take advantage of economies of scale.

    Make it cheap, quick and easy to deliver packages, and then get the hell out of the way - and let business do business.

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  • (Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 30 2017, @01:33PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 30 2017, @01:33PM (#615839)

    Wait, you mean that there are knock-on effects to changing shipping prices? Holy shit, somebody should tell Trump.
    He should be a contestant on "You're dumber than a first grader"

    • (Score: 5, Funny) by forkazoo on Saturday December 30 2017, @05:05PM

      by forkazoo (2561) on Saturday December 30 2017, @05:05PM (#615887)

      It would honestly be really hard to explain the concept of "consequences" to him. It's not something he seems to have experienced to this point.

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 30 2017, @04:24PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 30 2017, @04:24PM (#615876)

    Absolutely. It never ceases to amaze me how I can buy a small, cheap item from China, have it internationally shipped and delivered for less than the postage cost alone of that item in my own country. Western sellers simply cannot compete with this.

    That said, if the postal service is losing money and one company is their largest customer then they are effectively subsidising that company. Trump aside, this is also a fair point to raise.

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday December 30 2017, @08:41PM (2 children)

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday December 30 2017, @08:41PM (#615969) Journal

      That said, if the postal service is losing money and one company is their largest customer then they are effectively subsidising that company.

      Not if a) that company can go elsewhere, and b) they would be losing even more money without their largest customer.

      • (Score: 1) by Sulla on Saturday December 30 2017, @10:24PM (1 child)

        by Sulla (5173) on Saturday December 30 2017, @10:24PM (#615987) Journal

        The company could go elsewhere, say to UPS or Fedex. Of course both of those two alternatives will just ship the stuff USPS too but collect a middleman fee.

        --
        Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 30 2017, @11:52PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 30 2017, @11:52PM (#616017)

          UPS has a service called UPS Innovations. They carry the box the long distance, then use USPS for the local delivery. That way they save in staff and trucks. USPS staff make their part to keep the market competive... the boxes arrive, but really late, later than USPS own. Time to call the Pinkertons, scummy workers and public company that resist privatization*. /s

          * See other posts in this thread, like https://soylentnews.org/politics/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=23331&page=1&cid=615873#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 30 2017, @06:36PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 30 2017, @06:36PM (#615908)

    You're making the assumption that all shippers pay the same rates for delivering a package via the USPS. However this is not the case. USPS has entered into contracts with Amazon that gives them sweetheart deals on delivery services. Giving better rates to only Amazon means other companies are at a decided disadvantage.

    What is going on now is only Making Amazon Great, Still. The country is more than just Amazon. Well, not yet anyway.

  • (Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 01 2018, @02:52AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 01 2018, @02:52AM (#616318)

    The post office is an anachronism. The private sector can do this work better than the US Government.