Gingerbread Houses Stamps for Holiday Season
The U.S. Postal Service kicked off the holiday season Wednesday 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 low-cost Flat-Rate shipping product — which has no additional surcharges — the Postal Service anticipates that its Priority Mail offerings will be very attractive to cost-conscious small businesses and holiday shippers.
The U.S. Postal Service is a self-supporting government enterprise.
