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Are Postage Stamps Going Down The Tubes?

In the latest issue of Internet World Magazine it is reported that over 150 million e-mail messages are being transmitted over the Internet each and every day---and this figure is growing by over 10 million per month! Simultaneously, the U.S. Postal Service's first class mail category is experiencing significant reductions in quantity of mail processed.

Concurrently, surveys also report that over 40 per cent of all American households now have computers and that more than one third of the American public will soon be plugged in to the Internet. The growth in computer ownership also continues to grow by leaps and bounds---with one survey projecting that, by the year 2002, over 60% of all Americans will be connected in some way to the Internet.

Along with these facts comes the new "e-stamp" technology (www.estamp.com) where computer owners can actually pay for, and print out, their own special postage stamps while on the Internet. E-Stamps, when printed on special self-adhesive paper, look similar to postage meter stamps which commercial businesses have used for years (and which many stamp collectors frown upon). The availability of this new E-Stamp technology, combined with the advent of electronic mail, may spell the doom of the normal postage stamp. (Special note: Internet-connected computer users are now reporting that as much as 50% of their daily correspondence comes not in their mailboxes, but from e-mail on the Internet.)

Or will it? Although the Internet spells a dramatic future drop in "through-the-mail" letter communications, the Postal Service believes that millions of Americans will not only continue to use the mails, but also buy (and save) the colorful and historic postage stamps that are issued each year. If for no other reason than the fact that stamps are, in effect, wonderful collectibles (plus the fact that the USPS sells nearly $200 million per year in stamps to collectors), they will continue to be issued and sold by the world's postal services.

The biggest problem the Postal Service faces is the competition presented to them by the Internet. All forms of letter communications will be affected---from first class to third class mails. In an era when Federal Express and United Parcel Service practically "own" the package delivery market, the USPS should experience serious future downward trends in the income they derive from normal mail communications---unless they can capture a good portion of the package delivery market.

We predict that, by the year 2005, the USPS will have to cut back on daily mail deliveries---perhaps by first eliminating Saturday mail deliveries to homes and businesses. They will also have to find new and different ways for the Internet, itself, to provide new income sources. In effect, we think mail delivery will be dramatically affected---but the issuance of postage stamps will continue on into the future.

Will the Internet perhaps eventually make the USPS obsolete? Some futurists are actually predicting this!

What's your opinion?

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