USPS Office of Inspector General

Same-day delivery. On-demand delivery. Customer control. Dynamic routing. These are just a few features that have made package delivery a booming and competitive industry. Some might even argue it’s a downright sexy one.

To get to the bells and whistles, however, you need a solid foundation. All of those innovations depend on accurate tracking. And tracking starts with scanning. Customers expect to be able to track their orders as soon as they have checked out online. So complete tracking and tracing is essential.

No pain no gain. The U.S. Postal Service has reduced spending over the past decade but it has come with a downside, notably a reduction in service. Over the past decade the Postal Service has reduced labor costs by $10 billion, improved productivity, and generally reined in spending.

Get ready for a political advertising avalanche. Politicians and the groups that support them are expected to spend a whopping $12.3 billion this year on campaign advertising in an array of media –television, radio, digital, print, and direct mail.

It’s a great time to be offering passport services. In the next couple of years, the U.S. Department of State anticipates a rise in new and renewal applications because of expiring passports, heightened security rules, and an improving economy.

The U.S. Postal Service’s unassuming money order product actually has quite a distinguished history. The government established the United States Money Order System in 1864 as a safe way for Union soldiers to send money home to relatives.

A century and a half later, Americans still find money orders valuable. Last year, over 6 million American households purchased about 100 million of them with a face value of roughly $21 billion. Money orders – among the Postal Service’s most profitable products – generated $159 million in revenue in fiscal year 2015.