
U.S. Postal Service To Launch Experimental Same-Day Delivery Service In November - skennedy
http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/12/u-s-postal-service-plans-to-launch-experimental-same-day-delivery-service-in-november/
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memset
Here is maybe a silly question: I order food every day. I make a phone call or
use a website, and an hour later, a pizza or sandwich shows up to my door.

What is prohibitive about doing this for groceries, toiletries, or other other
arbitrary merchandise?

It seems like if I order "banana pudding" from my local pizza place, I get it
in an hour. If I order "a banana and cup of pudding" from FreshDirect, I have
to wait for them to deliver it the next day within a 4-hour window.

Is there something fundamentally different about shipping goods as compared to
shipping ready-made food? Why don't we already see more of this?

~~~
untog
I was at a hackathon last weeked called Hackfood[1] that.. well, sounds
exactly like the name would imply.

Someone made a really quick hack called DeliveryHop that was actually a really
interesting idea. Basically, a system for 'free agents' to pick up orders from
restaurants and deliver them, rather than restaurants using their own
employees. It seems like it has a ton of benefits (for one, the delivery guy
could pick up from multiple restaurants delivering to the same area =
efficiency), and could easily expand beyond restaurants.

I have no idea how much restaurants really care about the cost of deliveries,
though- in a not-insignificant number of cases it's probably the owner's son
doing the delivery, or similar. Still, a fascinating idea.

[1] [http://pandodaily.com/2012/10/08/hacking-food-deliciously-
wi...](http://pandodaily.com/2012/10/08/hacking-food-deliciously-with-ordr-
ins-api-now-expanded-to-nyc-philly-and-boston/)

~~~
narcissus
We had a similar thing in my home town in Australia at some point too: the big
selling point for me, at least, was that when you were hanging out at a
friend's place and you decided that you just wanted to order in, you no longer
had to agree on what to get :)

Another business that used to operate, at least, was a liquor delivery
service, but only to restaurants. Back there, at least, a restaurant can be
licensed to serve liquor, or licensed for BYO (which I presume was cheaper).
So what would happen would be a restaurant would be licensed for BYO, but
still have a wine menu: when you ordered off the menu, you were technically
ordering through the delivery service and they would drop the wine off (they
were driving around all the time). So you may have waited a little longer, but
it was cheaper for everyone...

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willholloway
USPS is a national treasure. A fantastically efficient organization and an
example of a publicly owned and operated entity running well. USPS needs to be
increasing services, not cutting services. Saturday delivery should not be
cut. Sunday delivery should be added.

USPS is indispensable infrastructure, and crucial to e-commerce.

Amazon is owning retail, and USPS should be fighting to make every Prime
delivery in the nation, even on Sunday.

Local post offices have great reach and location. Right now they are
prohibited by law from engaging in other services. That law is obsolete.

~~~
001sky
I agree with some elements of where you are going with this, but caution the
general reader to not put too much stake in "new services" or "growth". The
USPS needs to shrink, as over 40% of their business is <delivering junk
mail>[1]. That was their latest "growth" initiative. Now they overexpanded
their overhead, and are facing cuts. New services (not junk) should be added
to replace declining 1st class, but the USPS needs to be radically re-scalled
and made efficient. This does no mean closing branches, it means cutting
overhead. US taxpayers should be subsisizing a communications infrastructure,
not be subsidizing a direct-marketing operation.

________________

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advertising_mail>

~~~
willholloway
The junk mail operation needs to be reigned in. Right now the Post Office does
not need subsidies, that may change in the future. Delivering junk mail is
hurting the brand with the tax payers that may be asked to give the subsidy.

The thrust of my argument, that services need to be added and not cut, is to
say that the Post Office should be made more useful and not less.

If the utility of the USPS dwindles, and we first cut Saturday delivery, and
we close neighborhood Post Offices and make cuts to service so that you cant
pick up the phone and get a local employee on to help you. If we go that
route, and that is the direction we are headed now, the chorus of voices
allied against the Post Office will be bolstered. The public will say, with
some justification, that the Post Office is not that useful and therefore
should be let go.

A national, publicly owned and operated non-profit efficient distribution
network: indispensable to our modern economy.

------
don_draper
A better feature would be to add an 'opt out' function for junk mail.

~~~
leeoniya
i was just thinking about this. i would collect all mail addressed to "current
resident" or something equally vague and every christmas drop it off in front
of the post office.

~~~
tomrod
Would you then receive it back in your mailbox? I haven't mailed a letter in
years, so I'm not sure junkmail gets stamp-canceled.

