US Postal Service To Deliver Groceries By 2020?

Same-day grocery delivery is one of many initiatives that the USPS is working on to improve and expand its services through the use of technology according to chief marketing and sales office Nagisa Manabe.

In this article in ecommercebytes.com the world in 2020 the world will look a lot different, a world that includes talking refrigerators ordering supplies and ... the U.S. Postal Service delivering the groceries to your door.

That possible scenario was proposed by Nagisa Manabe, the chief marketing and sales officer with the USPS, when she was speaking at PostalVision 2020, a conference focused on imagining how the Postal Service can reinvent itself in the face of dramatic shifts in consumer behavior. It  was one of many initiatives that the agency is working on to improve and expand its services through the use of technology according to Manabe, tapping into unused infrastructure and by forging new partnerships.

At the moment, Manabe said that the agency is actively looking for ways to build new business lines around what not long ago might have been considered science fiction.

"We are not that far from the point where the refrigerator will simply be able to reorder for you," she said. "You will see us looking to collaborate with grocery chains across the country. We'd like to experiment with grocery delivery, so that's one of the areas where we're looking in earnest."

Speed also figures to play an increasing role in the Postal Service's plans for packages as it grapples with a model for same-day ordering and delivery.

But many shoppers won't be willing to pay a premium for that delivery schedule, where an item ordered in the morning shows up later that day. For those consumers, "same-day" is equivalent to overnight or next-day, where items ordered at, say, 11 p.m. arrive the next day, according to Manabe.

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