United States Postal Service Shipping Wine By Summer?
This week I was contacted by an individual in the Ground Shipping Department at USPS regarding a Bill that recently passed the Department of Justice and is awaiting sponsorship by a state representative. This Bill would allow the USPS, a quasi-governmental corporation similar to Amtrak and the Federal Reserve, to ship wine like any of the other 250 million packages they ship each year.
In theory, a winery could take some wine to the post office or arrange for pickup and the receiving customer could have the wine delivered to their door to sign and present ID. This even means that someone could have wine shipped to their……wait for it…..P.O. BOX. For someone like myself that would be awesome. Although I may regularly accept packages at work, I would much prefer to roll into the Post Office and pick up my weekly stash of wine at my convenience.
Another proposed advantage is that if the recipient was not home or there was not an adult to sign for it, the customer could just go to the local post office to pick it up later that day or week. No more send-backs, and unlike the FedEx or UPS Distribution centers, most people know exactly where their local Post Office is.
Having the USPS enter the wine shipping biz would create more competition and perhaps greater conveniences. This is especially true as DHL has recently decided to ban wine shipments altogether starting November 3.
Are there any reasons why USPS should not enter the wine shipping business? Could this potentially be bad for wineries or their customers?
Update (11/3/08): Louis DeRienzo just e-mailed me to say that he had received over 150 responses from an e-mail we sent out asking wineries to add their support for the bill, much more than he had anticipated!
If you haven’t already done so, please e-mail Louis at louis.p.derienzo [@] usps.gov with the following message.
Dear Post Master General John E. Potter,
Our winery supports the United States Postal Service’s proposal to begin shipping wine. USPS could provide value and convenience to my winery in the growing direct-to-consumer wine shipping channel. Please continue to move this Bill forward. Thank you.
Keep up the e-mails everybody!
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November 3rd, 2008 at 3:42 pm
What can consumers do to help?
February 19th, 2009 at 11:20 am
Will this also allow APO customers stationed abroad to ship wine TO the states ?
February 23rd, 2009 at 3:14 pm
I don’t believe it will unfortunately. This will most likely only allow domestic shipments from wineries in the US who are licensed to produce and ship wine. I just spoke to Louis and he is still picking up more momentum….Things are going good but the more people to write the PMG the better!
October 31st, 2009 at 7:47 pm
Continue to send in the letters guys. I am away from the department on detail but my counterparts in Ground shipping are still working to promote this service. If I get any letters I will forward them on to the department Vice President to keep this intiative moving forward. Think its not only a money maker for the Postal Service but a safer way to ship wine within the U.S. and a great money saver for the wine industry.
March 11th, 2010 at 8:58 am
Thanks for all the support on this initiative. Unfortunately we’ve hit a snag. With the economy’s effect on the Postal Service we are having to curb this initiative to have the law changed. We will support any initiative by the wine industry to try and change the law at this time but do not have the funding to put towards getting the law changed at this time. If someone from the wine industry wants to contact me, I’d be happy to give them an update on what’s been done and what still needs to be done to try and make this happen. Would hate to see this end here as it would save wine shippers money and make the shipments of wine more secure.