USPS – Average Mailpiece Delivered in Under 3 Days During First Week of January 2022

The United States Postal Service reported new service delivery performance metrics for the first week of the fiscal second-quarter showing service performance holding steady for First-Class Mail, Marketing Mail and Periodicals.

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Consistent with the rest of the shipping industry, the organization experienced some minor delays in both ground and air transportation during the week of January 1-7.

The Postal Service continues to address impacts to last-mile delivery due to availability challenges due to COVID-19 cases and inclement weather events including winter storms on the East Coast, Midwest and West Coast.

However, the Postal Service’s mitigation plans continue to perform well it said, enabling the organization to maintain strong service performance scores across all mail categories.

Second quarter-to-date service performance scores covering the period January.1 through January 7 included:

• First-Class Mail: 90 percent of First-Class Mail delivered on time against the USPS service standard, an improvement of .37 percentage points from the first quarter.
• Marketing Mail: 91.7 percent of Marketing Mail delivered on time against the USPS service standard, a slight decrease of .46 percentage points from the first quarter.
• Periodicals: 81.1 percent of Periodicals delivered on time against the USPS service standard, with an improvement of .37 percentage points from the first quarter.

From January 1 through January 7, the average time to deliver a mailpiece across the postal network was 2.6 days.

One of the goals of Delivering for America, the Postal Service’s 10-year plan for achieving financial sustainability and service excellence, is to meet or exceed 95 percent on-time service performance for all mail and shipping products once all elements of the plan are implemented.

Service performance is defined by the Postal Service as the time it takes to deliver a mailpiece or package from its acceptance into its system through delivery, as measured against published service standards.

New USPS Service Standards

The Postal Service adjusted its service standards on First-Class Mail and Periodicals last October but delayed the implementation of the new service standards for First-Class Parcel Mail until after the holidays.

USPS has not confirmed when the new First-Class Parcel Mail standards will be in force, which will impact many small business merchants and marketplace sellers.