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