NEW YORK — The U.S. Postal Service kicked off the holiday season last week with its improved Priority Mail products and new Gingerbread Houses Forever stamps. The Postal Service expects to process 545 million pieces of mail every day throughout this holiday season; totaling nearly 15 billion pieces of mail to be delivered between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Eve. Competitive package volume also is expected to increase by approximately 12 percent from last year to about 420 million packages during the 2013 holiday season.
The Postal Service is ready to deliver holiday greetings and gifts to more than 152 million addresses nationwide. The busiest mailing day this season is projected to be Monday, Dec. 16, when more than 600 million pieces of mail are expected to be processed. The same day, 6 million customers are expected to visit Post Offices nationwide.
The busiest delivery day for mail will be Wednesday, Dec. 18 and the busiest day for packages will be Thursday, Dec. 19.
This is the first holiday season that consumers and businesses can take advantage of the recently revamped Priority Mail, which now comes with free insurance, day-specific delivery and free tracking. With our low-cost Flat-Rate shipping product — which has no additional surcharges — the Postal Service anticipates that its highly popular Priority Mail offerings will be very attractive to cost-conscious small businesses and holiday shippers.
Today, Patrick Donahoe, Postmaster General and CEO, along with Nagisa Manabe, Chief Marketing and Sales Officer, announced the 2013 holiday season mailing and shipping forecasts for the 2013 holiday season during a kick-off event in New York.
“The holidays are a special time of year for the U.S. Postal Service. We consider it a privilege to help spread holiday cheer by delivering billions of holiday greetings and packages to millions of homes and businesses around the country,” said Donahoe. “Our residential and business customers will experience improved Priority Mail service this year with new features that include enhanced tracking visibility.”
“We’re providing a compelling value proposition for holiday shippers with our improved Priority Mail for whatever you ship and wherever you plan to ship it,” said Manabe. “Our improved Priority Mail products, combined with the improved tracking visibility, convenience and affordability our customers expect, will help make the Postal Service an important resource to our customers during the busy holiday season.”
