Postal Agencies Respond to Mail Decline

New York Times: Postal Agencies Respond to Mail Decline

NEW YORK (AP) — Marty Sellers used to need about a hundred postage stamps every three months. These days, he can stretch that supply to last a year.

Sellers, 40, now pays most bills online and receives financial statements electronically. The owner of Sellers Photo in Huntsville, Ala., he also has cut down on mailing clients CDs, transferring images over the Internet instead.

''Even things like a birthday card, I will just send a happy birthday e-mail,'' he said.

Because many people around the world are like Sellers, the U.S. Postal Service and its counterparts in other countries are tapping technology to cut costs and expand into electronic services — including services designed to attract more ''junk'' mail.

In the United States, first-class mail volume has dropped 7 percent since 2001 — an average of 1.3 billion fewer letters, postcards and bills each year. A 15 percent boost in bulk advertising and other discounted mailings has so far offset only some of the loss in revenue.

Many postal agencies are having to serve more households because their nations' populations are growing but are getting less mail to deliver to each, said Dean Pope, general manager of business development at Canada Post.

''In order to sustain business in that formula, you have to find new services and products and find new revenue growth opportunities,'' he said. …