USPS Announces Service Changes

The United States Postal Service (USPS) has been making a number of changes recently, and just announced its biggest change to services in recent history.

As of July 9th, 2023, USPS will be replacing its Retail Ground, First Class Package, and Parcel Select Ground services (along with returns options such as First-Class Package Return service and Ground Returns) with one new service, which will be known as USPS Ground Advantage.

The changes might heavily impact you if you are utilizing USPS for your ecommerce business. Mailers who use First Class Package are not unfamiliar with USPS making changes that negatively impact service levels after they switched “long-distance” packages to ground last year. The retirement of First Class Package – and the retirement of delivery by air – and the introduction of USPS Ground Advantage will significantly impact the service levels that ecommerce businesses and their customers have become used to.

USPS has quoted the Ground Advantage service level as 2-5 business days. However, we spoke with one industry expert that suggested that 4-8 days is likely to be closer to reality, especially during the initial introduction of USPS Ground Advantage. They claimed the removal of air service could potentially overwhelm ground services during the transition and result in longer transit times.

For more information, including all the details of the new USPS Ground Advantage, and their impact on ecommerce businesses, download our guide to the upcoming USPS service changes.