Preparing for an electronic future

During the next four to five years, both the USPS and Canada Post expect to see letter mail volume drop significantly as online bill presentment and payment, as well as services such as targeted bulk mail and e-cards, gain customer interest.

"We're working basically to keep two streams alive. One is the hard copy, which is our industry now. But we're also looking into the future, which is going to be e-commerce, and we're looking to be big in parcel distribution because of online purchases," says John Caines, national manager of media relations at Canada Post, in Ottawa.

To help make the online leap, Canada Post offers a free electronic post office box to users through www.epost.ca, where customers can securely receive mail from senders they have previously selected.

The program was originally set up for online bill presentment and payment, but has been expanded due to the potential for targeted advertising. Customers can now choose from among 50 to 100 suppliers and determine exactly which companies' advertising they want to receive. Currently, the program has about 100,000 participants, Caines adds.

In addition, Canada Post has launched eParcel and eStores. A Web-based software developed in-house, eParcel can be integrated into a retailer's site to offer consumers delivery options; eStores, an online application, creates a virtual storefront merging postal technology with a virtual mall of about 400 Canadian retailers.

Both Canada Post and the USPS are involved with PosteCS, a secure message delivery and tracking service launched in April 2000 and also supported by France's La Poste. USPS also partnered with CheckFree to create eBillPay, an e-billing service, in April 2000. In addition, the USPS offers an electronic postmark that time and date 'stamps' an electronic document or file and alerts a user of tampering.

"The other thing the Internet and overall technology are enabling us to do, quite honestly, is streamline our internal costs, and that's a big deal," Nolan says. "We're using the Internet just like a lot of companies to try and drive down costs administratively and then leverage that infrastructure to enhance our core products and offer Internet-related products outside our mainstream."

The USPS also has some services in the works sparked by consumer demand, including a central site to submit change-of-address information and to select which companies, such as a magazine or insurance companies, should automatically receive the updated address; and the USPS's own secure e-mailbox program. Analysts note, however, that the USPS's large size will likely slow implementation of any Internet plan, despite recent increases in flexibility.