Shop, Drop, and Mail
This holiday season many of us will find ourselves rushing from one errand to the next, often visiting a variety of stores to accomplish all of our tasks. Wouldn’t “one-stop shopping” be easier? Wouldn’t it be nice to get everything from shopping to wrapping to shipping taken care of in a single trip? Locations offering a multitude of services potentially increase foot traffic because of the convenience they offer. They also create opportunities for the company to sell more products and services to its customers.
In other countries, such as Sweden and Australia, the trend has been toward placing postal counters in grocery stores and pharmacies, often located in shopping malls. Customers can buy stamps or ship their packages while they are shopping for food and other staples. In the United States, grocery and other retail stores sell stamps at check-out counters, but do not offer shipping options. Office supply and other approved shipping stores offer a range of Postal Service mailing services including Priority and Express mail. Customers find that using these stores for their mailing needs saves time and effort because many of these retail outlets have longer hours than post offices and are conveniently located.
Read MoreNaming Rights, Retail Ad Space and Other Ideas
Twenty years ago, when professional sporting teams started selling naming rights to their stadiums and arenas, many purists called it a low point in the commercialization of sports. But today, the number of arenas and ballparks not named after a corporate sponsor is small. For revenue-seeking team owners, it is just too hard to pass up the money that comes with selling your stadiums’ name. Strategy, business development and marketing all play huge factors in naming-rights deals, with top prices for these deals reaching about half a billion dollars, according to Sports Business Journal.
As a business-centered organization looking to boost revenues, does the U.S. Postal Service have opportunities to sell naming rights? The idea of selling the naming rights to an entire Post Office might not be palatable to Congress, as lawmakers like to name post offices after fallen soldiers or local heroes. But what about selling space in parts of the Post Office? For example: this retail counter brought to you by XYZ Co.? Sides of vehicles or automated postal centers in high-traffic areas of retail centers could also hold valuable advertising space. With its national reach, yet local presence, the Postal Service is visible in every community nearly every day. Companies and nonprofit organizations would likely find the opportunities to reach such a large audience appealing.
Read MoreMaking Voting Quick, Easy and Convenient
The historic election of 2012 is over. Whether your candidate won or lost, you can feel confident that the American electoral process, a model for the free world, worked as the Founding Fathers intended – even if they never could have imagined spending billions of dollars on an election.
However, many citizens complained about the long lines at polling places and the unreasonable wait times. The wait times seemed to range from 30 minutes to several hours. In some cases, voters abandoned the polls altogether after a lengthy wait.
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