Parcel post is a postal service for mail that is too heavy for normal letter post. It is usually slower than letter post. The development of the parcel post is closely connected with the development of the railway network which enabled parcels to be carried in bulk, to a regular schedule and at economic prices. Today, many parcels also travel by road and international shipments may travel by sea or airmail.
The idea of a parcel post may be credited to Germany, where the growth of railways had brought uniform postal rates throughout Germany and Austria in 1857. The practice of forwarding parcels with the mail, however, had been in use in Austria since the seventeenth century and in some German states is said to date to the fifteenth century. In the first year after the establishment of the domestic parcel post in Germany (1874), 38,862,654 parcels were carried, rising to 62,946,100 by 1881. [1]
The international parcel service, which allowed the orderly shipment of mailed packages and parcels from one country to another according to predetermined rates, was established by the Universal Postal Union on 1 October 1881 (Great Britain, India, The Netherlands and Persia, 1 April 1882), following the agreement of 1880 in Paris during a three-week conference on the subject. [2] The service was difficult to introduce as in several countries the carriage of parcels was a monopoly of the railway companies, and Egypt, Great Britain, India, Canada and Italy all initially claimed that there was no parcel service in their country. [3]
The British domestic parcel post service was established on 1 August 1883. [1] [4] Commonwealth and foreign parcel post services were also established.[ when? ][ citation needed ] The eight Australasian colonies (South Australia, Western Australia, New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, Tasmania, New Zealand, British New Guinea and Fiji) and the other separate postal services of the colonies joined the UPU in 1891.[ citation needed ] By 1909/10, over 118 million parcels annually were being carried in the U.K., around 2.5% of which were international. [1]
The United States, as a signatory, started foreign parcel services in 1887 [5] but did not institute domestic services until 1913. [6]
The USPS, successor to the U.S. Post Office, officially ended International Parcel Post service in May 2007 after some 120 years of existence. International Parcel Post service was replaced by First-class Mail International service for parcels up to four pounds. For heavier parcels and/or printed matter, Priority Mail International, Priority Mail International Flat-Rate, Express Mail International, Airmail M-Bags, and Global Express Guaranteed service is available to foreign countries allowing these types of mail delivery.
USPS Domestic Parcel Post was an affordable method of sending large parcels of up to seventy pounds and a maximum combined length and girth of one hundred and thirty inches via ground transportation across the U.S. [7] Effective January 27, 2013, the USPS renamed its parcel post service from 'Parcel Post' to 'Standard Post'. [USPS Standard Post 1] [USPS Standard Post 2] Effective January 17, 2016, the USPS renamed the service again, from "Standard Post" to "USPS Retail Ground", a name intended to resemble those of competing services UPS Ground and FedEx Ground.
Commercial Parcel Post service is now under the "Parcel Select" name.
Private couriers have existed since goods first needed to be transported from place to place.[ citation needed ] Before the development of state-run parcel posts, many stagecoach and railway companies had a thriving parcel service and private companies continue to run their own delivery networks today through firms like FedEx Express or DHL Express, even owning their own aircraft for long distance deliveries. Numerous smaller firms provide domestic and international courier services.
Before the development of the railway network, road transport was the principal means of parcel transport. Services by road continued to thrive even during the railway age, including by bus, tram and trolley car. [8] [9]
The size can range from a standard mail package to a box large enough to protect what is sent, up to a size that can be transported in a wheelbarrow.
Parcels often bear a barcode so they can be tracked at all the stages up to their reception by the final recipient. [10]
An international reply coupon (IRC) is a coupon that can be exchanged for one or more postage stamps representing the minimum postage for an unregistered priority airmail letter of up to twenty grams sent to another Universal Postal Union (UPU) member country. IRCs are accepted by all UPU member countries.
The Universal Postal Union is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) that coordinates postal policies among member nations and facilitates a uniform worldwide postal system. It comprises 192 member states and is headquartered in Bern, Switzerland.
The United States Postal Service (USPS), also known as the Post Office, U.S. Mail, or Postal Service, is an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government responsible for providing postal service in the U.S., its insular areas, and its associated states. It is one of the few government agencies explicitly authorized by the Constitution of the United States. The USPS, as of 2021, has 516,636 career employees and 136,531 non-career employees.
The mail or post is a system for physically transporting postcards, letters, and parcels. A postal service can be private or public, though many governments place restrictions on private systems. Since the mid-19th century, national postal systems have generally been established as a government monopoly, with a fee on the article prepaid. Proof of payment is usually in the form of an adhesive postage stamp, but a postage meter is also used for bulk mailing.
The United States Post Office Department was the predecessor of the United States Postal Service, established in 1792. From 1872 to 1971, it was officially in the form of a Cabinet department. It was headed by the postmaster general.
Package delivery or parcel delivery is the delivery of shipping containers, parcels, or high value mail as single shipments. The service is provided by most postal systems, express mail, private courier companies, and less than truckload shipping carriers. Package delivery is different in each country, and how packages are delivered is closely connected with the cost for delivering to that country as well as population. In 2019, China, The United States, and Japan were the leaders in package delivery while Latvia, Macau, and Iceland were the bottom three. The population of the bottom three barely totals 2 million while the population of the top three tops totals more than 2 billion. Package delivery is an every day occurrence in the USA while many other countries do not have this luxury.
Postal history is the study of postal systems and how they operate and, or, the study of the use of postage stamps and covers and associated postal artifacts illustrating historical episodes in the development of postal systems. The term is attributed to Robson Lowe, a professional philatelist, stamp dealer and stamp auctioneer, who made the first organised study of the subject in the 1930s and described philatelists as "students of science", but postal historians as "students of humanity". More precisely, philatelists describe postal history as the study of rates, routes, markings, and means.
Registered mail is a mail service offered by postal services in many countries which allows the sender proof of mailing via a mailing receipt and, upon request, electronic verification that an article was delivered or that a delivery attempt was made. Depending on the country, additional services may also be available, such as:
Franking comprises all devices, markings, or combinations thereof ("franks") applied to mails of any class which qualifies them to be postally serviced. Types of franks include uncanceled and precanceled postage stamps, impressions applied via postage meter, official use "Penalty" franks, Business Reply Mail (BRM), and other permit Imprints (Indicia), manuscript and facsimile "franking privilege" signatures, "soldier's mail" markings, and any other forms authorized by the 192 postal administrations that are members of the Universal Postal Union.
The system for mail delivery in the United States has developed with the nation. Rates were based on the distance between sender and receiver in the early years of the nation. In the middle of the 19th century, rates stabilized to one price regardless of distance. Rates were relatively unchanged until 1968, when the price was increased every few years by a small amount. Comparing the increases with a price index, the price of a first class stamp has been steady. The seal of the Post Office Department showed a man on a running horse, even as railroads and, later, motorized trucks and airplanes moved mail. In 1971, the Post Office became the United States Postal Service, with rates set by the Postal Regulatory Commission, with some oversight by Congress. Air mail became standard in 1975. In the 21st century, prices were segmented to match the sorting machinery in use; non-standard letters required slightly higher postage.
Express mail is an expedited mail delivery service for which the customer pays a premium for faster delivery. Express mail is a service for domestic and international mail, and is in most nations governed by the country's own postal administration. Since 1999, the international express delivery services are governed by the EMS Cooperative.
Generally, packet trade is any regularly scheduled cargo, passenger and mail trade conducted by boat or ship. The boats or ships are called "packet boats or packet ships" as their original function was to carry mail.
Military mail, as opposed to civilian mail, refers to the postal services provided by armed forces that allow serving members to send and receive mail. Military mail systems are often subsidized to ensure that military mail does not cost the sender any more than normal domestic mail. In some cases, military personnel in a combat zone may post letters and packages to their home country free of charge. Modern military mail services are provided by most armed forces around the world. In some nations, individual service branches may run their own military mail program.
Pakistan Post is a state enterprise which functions as Pakistan's primary and largest postal operator. 49,502 employees through a vehicle fleet of 5,000 operate traditional "to the door" service from more than 13,419 post offices across the country, servicing over 50 million people. Pakistan Post operates under the autonomous "Postal Services Management Board" to deliver a full range of delivery, logistics and fulfillment services to customers.
HP-Hrvatska pošta d.d., founded in 1999, is a state-owned joint-stock company in Croatia that performs postal and payment transactions. It is the national postal operator of the Republic of Croatia.
United States airmail was a service class of the United States Post Office Department (USPOD) and its successor United States Postal Service (USPS) delivering air mail by aircraft flown within the United States and its possessions and territories. Letters and parcels intended for air mail service were marked as "Via Air Mail", appropriately franked, and assigned to any then existing class or sub-class of the Air Mail service.
Surface mail, also known as sea mail, is mail that is transported by land and sea, rather than by air, as in airmail. Surface mail is significantly less expensive but slower than airmail, and thus is preferred for large or heavy, non-urgent items and is primarily used for sending packages, not letters.
Tracking numbers are numbers assigned to packages when they are shipped. Tracking numbers are useful for knowing the location of time sensitive deliveries. It is a unique ID number or code assigned to a package or parcel. The tracking number is typically printed on the shipping label as a bar code that can be scanned by anyone with a bar code reader or smartphone.
The Barbados Postal Service (B.P.S.) is the national postal operator of Barbados and operates as a department within the Government of Barbados where it reports to the Ministry of Home Affairs. The Barbados Postal Service (B.P.S.) is headed by the acting Postmaster General, Sheila Greaves, who is responsible for maintaining the island’s postal services, subject to the laws of the island. In 1852, the Postal services for Barbados were reconstituted following the passage of local legislation enabling the delivery of inland postage.
The United States Postal Service (USPS) provides Priority Mail Express for domestic U.S. delivery, and offers two types of international Express Mail services, although only one of them is part of the EMS standard. One is called Priority Mail Express International and the other service is called Global Express Guaranteed (GXG). The latter has no relation to "EMS" International service as provided by the EMS Cooperative.
USPS Standard Post
| History |  | |
|---|---|---|
| Components | ||
| Delivery | ||
| Staff | ||
| Processing | ||
Institutions and systems | ||
| Related | ||
| List of entities that have issued postage stamps | ||
