Is the USPS Ready for Holiday Peak Shipping?

The Postal Service Office of Inspector General (OIG) put out a call asking for input on whether the USPS is ready for holiday peak shipping. It’s conducting a preparedness audit, and posted the following announcement on social media site Threads:

“Our auditors have begun assessing USPS’s preparedness to face the upcoming peak mailing season from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Eve. Do you have information that might be useful for this audit report? Contact us here: ow.ly/RYQ45… #USPSOIG #USPS #holidays.”

It’s an important issue, since many online sellers rely on the USPS to deliver their orders to customers during the busy holiday shopping season – and marketplaces penalize sellers who don’t deliver in a timely manner. Some years have seen holiday delays – with weather often playing a major role in performance.

The post on Threads linked to a page on the USPS OIG website containing additional information. The “Fiscal Year 2024 Peak Mailing Season Preparedness” audit started on August 2, and the OIG will release the report in November:

“Each year, increased mail volume and operational changes during the peak mailing season — Thanksgiving through New Year’s Eve — significantly strain the Postal Service’s processing and delivery networks. To help handle this increase in volume, the Postal Service creates preparedness plans, which have previously included hiring temporary employees, leasing additional temporary facility space, and deploying additional mail processing machines. Our objective is to evaluate the Postal Service’s preparedness for the fiscal year (FY) 2024 peak mailing season.”

There’s an invitation to contact the OIG “if you have any information or input that might be beneficial to the auditors on this topic” with a link to a webform. (We’re not sure if the information submitted is made public as is often the case when contacting a government agency.)

Last year, the USPS proactively announced its preparedness in October, saying it was hiring 28,000 seasonal employees and noting it had installed 116 new package sorting machines across the country to expand daily package processing capacity to 60 million.

It’s a good time to ask readers, are you ready for the busy holiday shopping season?

Ina Steiner

Ina Steiner is co-founder and Editor of EcommerceBytes and has been reporting on ecommerce since 1999. She’s a widely cited authority on marketplace selling and is author of “Turn eBay Data Into Dollars” (McGraw-Hill 2006). Her blog was featured in the book, “Blogging Heroes” (Wiley 2008). She is a member of the Online News Association (Sep 2005 – present) and Investigative Reporters and Editors (Mar 2006 – present). Follow her on Twitter at @ecommercebytes and send news tips to ina@ecommercebytes.com. See disclosure at EcommerceBytes.com/disclosure/.