This is an important week in mail measurement. Last year, Thanksgiving week is when USPS service went, if you’ll pardon the technical jargon, in the toilet. There are some statistical peculiarities in a holiday week that may make service look a little better, but not a ton. The average First-Class letter took 2.93 days to deliver – a nice improvement over last week’s 3.24 days, and about average overall. I think we will all settle for “average” for the next few weeks.
First-Class Letters were on time 84.77% of the time based on previous delivery service standards, up almost three percentage points from the prior week’s disappointing performance. Again, this is not using the new, slower standards. Using these same standards, First-Class flats were the dark spot on the week with on-time
deliveries only 80.96% of the time.
Marketing Mail Letters were on time 96.20% of the time, a bit better than the prior week. Again, against a much more generous standard. Marketing Mail flats were delivered on time 88.71% of the time, in pretty much a dead heat with last week’s performance. In increased percentage were more than 5 days late – 5.09%
Average Intra-SCF delivery time was 2.07 days for Marketing Mail letters, 2.67 days for Marketing Mail flats. This is a small improvement for letters, and a marked decline for flats.
Slowest SCFs for Intra-SCF delivery week of 11/22:
· Jacksonville, FL: 5.04 days
· Ft Worth, TX: 4.11 days
· NNJ Metro, NJ: 4.01 days
The fastest:
· San Diego, CA: 1.25 days
· Peoria, IL: 1.26 days
· Van Nuys, CA: 1.29 days
A letter from California to Maryland, on average, took:
· First-Class: 4.06 days
· Marketing Mail: 6.99 days
All in all, it was an encouraging week. Fingers crossed!
