I send postcards. Both electronic and actual. In this day of email, Facebook and Twitter I think that the Post Office (USPS) is a charming but expensive anachronism. It will be a financial burden to our children and to their children and there is very little we can do about it. Click here to see how many times I’ve written about the problem of the Post Office’s failed business model.
But today I want to tell you about an opportunity. Look at these two pictures. The first is what every corner and intersection in rural America used to look like:
The second is what they are starting to look like now:
This makes perfect sense for the USPS it is much more efficient to deliver mail to the combined boxes. But you ask: Where is the entrepreneurial opportunity? The answer is easy: Be the person who buys or just retrieves all of the old battered rural mailboxes, becomes an expert in mailboxes and sells them and knowledge about them on places like eBay. Mailboxes are going to be a great collectible and you can be in it early. Will it work? The doors of old urban PO boxes are already a collectible.
Going back to the Post Offices problem for another rant: The USPS should admit that their business model has changed and that they are in end game. They should raise the price of First Class Mail (currently $0.46) to a dollar and all of their other prices proportionally. Additionally they should drop to once a week delivery of all mail that is not paid priority. These changes would finance the orderly shut down of the service and the financing of the employees pensions and benefits. All other changes are just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Unfortunately it won’t happen because the Congress is an extremely conservative body and opposes all change.