Fruity  

I read today that the USPS went to the Senate to ask them to change the law on the books that required them to deliver mail 6 days a week, so they could stop delivery on a day. Because the post office is BROKE they want to penalize all Americans. You know, sure who wants to see the bill on Saturday, right? But the postal service is not really up to par with competitors like UPS, Fedex and DHL in as far as they will work with volume shippers and give them discounted rates. You know what the USPS did? They partnered with Ebay years ago so ebay could have their boxes branded with the postal service. Who paid for THAT! And Ebay knows all those half a million plus small businesses are using or were using PAYPAL to ship their products. But the postal service wont' budge an inch to offer discounts to those smal businesses.

Maybe the Senators need to ask USPS what business contract they have with PAYPAL & paypal, whether they are giving Paypal a deep volume discount which is more than realistic is happening. But does Ebay/Paypal give it to the sellers who are shipping? No, they don't! And what happens, small businesses are taking their business to Fedex and UPS and DHL because they will WORK WITH THE SMALL BUSINESSES. I think that we are starting to see just how much of an impact the small businesses on the internet engaging in ecommerce affects our economy. I am really upset that the postal service is even considering cutting out a single day. Ebay puts us up against the wall with these shipping times. So its critical that shipping happen right away. You know I find it very strange that just prior to this being announced, ebay started sending surveys to some of their sellers asking about whether we would do fulfillment center shipping. What that means is that we ship all our products to these centers & ebay does the shipping. That would allow them to get corporate deep discounts which means basically it costs NOTHING to ship. That just means there will be even MORE lost to the post office. Maybe the post office was too dependent on "eBay" sending them business that they're now seeing ebay might be looking elsewhere and now crawling to Capitol Hill for basically a get out of jail card. This will also cause them to have to lay off postal workers, who are already up against the wall. My post man of 12 years, who was in his 60s. Always happy, always there, always reliable. He got laid off because of consolidation. They laid off a clerk because now they have the self serve postage machines. Why is it ALWAYS tolerable to EXPENSE and DISPOSE of  PEOPLE before looking at ways to cut unnecessary expenses.

US Postmaster General John E. Potter  "Faced with dwindling mail volume and rising costs, the post office was $2.8 billion in the red last year. "If current trends continue, we could experience a net loss of $6 billion or more this fiscal year,"

Senator Susan Collins expressed concerns over the Post Offices' claim. She issued a statement today via the GL & Governmental Affairs website
http://hsgac.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?Fuseaction=PressReleases.Home&Affiliation=R


You know what I think? I think that this year is the reckoning. Where the thrown in the basement small businesses sellers on the internet are gonna be heard by our Government. We told you and no one listened to us then. We told you about the need to regulate, we told you about unregulated financial banking  / financial services. We may have an even great affect than the Auto Industry. 724,000 businesses at one point selling most or all to get their earnings. Factor in the casual sellers, we are talking easily a MILLION SMALL BUSINESSES WHO COULD OF BEEN SHIPPING BILLIONS OF USPS PACKAGES

Look at this quote you turkeys! From the same Potter guy who is all over the Senate committee. Quoted by the New York Times in 2006

EBay shippers, said Mr. Potter in a recent interview, have accounted for more than $1 billion worth of postage since the Postal Service started working with the company in 2004.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/02/business/02postal.html

Oh yeah, he's quoted all over even ebays investor relations page. 724,000 Americans selling online. You think that doesn't have an impact?
http://investor.ebay.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=170073