Partners?

In the past, the U.S. Postal Service, UPS, FedEx and DHL were seen as fierce competitors. That's still true and for the Postal Service; the other three are also some of our biggest customers.

And in today's market, it's called co-opetition, where competitors are also valuable customers. They are drawn to the Postal Service because they know that no other shipping company has the reach or the reliability that we do. Our reach is unparalleled: every home and business in the country, that's 146 million addresses. Every day.

It's because of that vast reach that other carriers come to us to deliver packages to their final destination, the last mile with our value-priced package service Parcel Select, for residential and Saturday delivery.

Parcel Select is a reliable, low-cost way for businesses to ship packages to residential customers. Postal Service business partners, including traditional competitors like FedEx, UPS and DHL, pick up packages from large retailers, then transport and deposit these packages at a Postal Service facility near the customer's address. From there, Postal Service carriers deliver the packages the last mile to their final destination. It makes sense. We're out driving eco-friendly vehicles in communities, delivering mail to every home already.

Parcel Select provides special features that are important to shippers such as upfront estimates of delivery times, email notification to customers and end-to-end tracking with electronic data interchange.

However, we're not only leveraging our strengths in the last mile of delivery, the first mile is just as important to the business.

And since none of our competitors can deliver or pick up a package as economically as we can, we also want to pick up return packages for competitors at our customers' doors, and go the last mile with Parcel Return Service.

Parcel Return Service is a work-share incentive program that gives merchants a convenient way for customers to return merchandise while offering substantial cost savings. Merchants can provide customers preprinted labels with prepaid postage and then customers can give the prepaid packages to a Postal Service carrier, put it in a collection box or take it to a local Post Office. And like "Parcel Select," Parcel Return Service offers en-route tracking to help businesses manage their returns process better.

Now with new freedoms to negotiate prices and customize solutions, we're going after a bigger share of the highly competitive package business with Parcel Select and Parcel Return Services. This allows us to grow our already reliable, convenient and economical service by offering competitive pricing.

And now for the first time in history, we're offering rebates for Parcel Select, which lower the price for parcel returns picked up from our post offices. That will encourage more business from current partners and new business from other shippers.

With even more opportunity to customize ground shipping service and consolidate packages for the most cost-effective shipping in the marketplace, customers can get started by asking their local Postal Service sales representative.

For more information on the U.S. Postal Service's products and services, please visit www.usps.com.