Louis DeJoy’s big plan for USPS reform: rethinking its relationship with Amazon and other e-commerce players

Slowing down mail service — or lowering the standard the service is aiming for — could make USPS less competitive in a business environment that prizes speed. But for e-commerce, USPS is generally the choice of shippers who are less concerned about speed.

What could cause a shake-up in the e-commerce world is changes to the USPS’s workshare agreements.

“I’m evaluating workshare,” said DeJoy Wednesday.

Workshares with players like Pitney Bowes, UPS SurePost, DHL E-commerce, and others are arrangements where another company takes and sorts small packages, then transfers them to USPS for the last mile. They were designed as a way for USPS to bring in revenue while leaving some of the more expensive elements of delivery service (running large sortation centers and sometimes air freight) to other players.