The delays have been devastating for small businesses that have come to rely on the post office to get their products to consumers.
The mail delays have “asked me how I do business,” said Dana Osborne, a card designer for weddings and special events in Omaha, Nebraska. Osborne relied on the Postal Service to deliver their supplies to make their customized invitations and send out the finished cards to clients.
“It throws a curveball at me when it comes to getting things done to my clients,” said Osborne, 39. She is considering starting to design invitations earlier than usual, and advises couples to send out invitations a month earlier. then normal.
While larger retailers often have their own delivery networks such as contracts with carriers such as UPS and FedEx, small businesses are charging USPS ‘lower rates to ship orders to customers, especially in rural areas where other carriers refuse to deliver.
“The USPS – while certainly far from perfect – has a leveling effect on trade, ensuring that even the smallest, home-based businesses can serve and access their customers,” said Molly Day, spokeswoman for the National Small Business Association, in in e-mail.
Many small businesses struggling to stay afloat have also increased their online orders during the pandemic, as fewer customers go to physical stores. Delays in customer orders threaten to choke this growing part of the business.
“These delays are life-threatening for many small businesses,” said Stacy Mitchell, co-director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, an advocacy group that opposes concentrated economic power in communities. “They are already struggling to survive the worst crisis that hit Main Street in our lifetimes, and now the Trump administration is making it much harder to continue.”
A spokeswoman for the Postal Service said in an email that it had “experienced some interruptions of temporary services at a few locations domestically, due to the Covid-19 pandemic.” The spokesman added that “things are slowly returning to normal” and that the Postal Service “would continue our available resources to cope with the increased workload, including hiring based on local needs.”
In the market and craft market Etsy uses more than 90% of independent sellers USPS to supply their items to customers.
In Deer Park, Illinois, Mauricio Romy, 31, the owner of Happki, a specialty toy retailer for young children and adults that went online last year and opened its first store, recently began receiving complaints from customers that toys had not yet arrived. of USPS.
In Romy’s business, it’s important that packages arrive on time for special occasions: “We have a commitment to our customers for birthdays and baby shows,” he said. “I take it really personally.”
He said he had to apologize to one customer who ordered a guitar bag for her cousin and the shipment was delayed.
Other small business owners say the Postal Service is helping them compete online with Amazon and larger retailers, and they worry that delays will lead to negative reviews and push more customers to shop at larger stores.
Morgan Harris, 40, owner of Green Bambino, a boutique baby store in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma that sells items such as toys, clothing and car seats, sends 90% of customers ‘online orders from a post office located 900 meters from’ the store.
“The post office is affordable and fast and lets me provide good customer service,” she said.
Although customers have not complained about shipping items from their store, they are of the opinion that they will switch to Amazon if they cannot receive deliveries of Green Bambino on time.
“If I have to tell a customer ‘we’ll send it to you, but it’s going to take two weeks,’ ‘they’ would say ‘no thank you,’ she said. ‘ I’m losing customers by absolutely no own fault. “
In Lancaster, Ohio, Patti Riordan, 63, who owns Smoke Stack Hobby Shop with her husband, said USPS helps the store compete with larger retailers by offering the company affordable shipping costs. The store sells items such as model trains and aircraft remotely and helicopters.
The store is “too small to receive advantageous shipping costs from UPS or FedEx,” she said, and the store would have to increase customer prices to ship through these carriers. She is of the opinion that customers could not leave their store when this happened.
“There are big retailers whose shipping scenario is just a round mistake for them. Small businesses are not in the same situation. We just do not have that leverage,” she said. “USPS becomes an equalizer.”
CNN’s Kristen Holmes and Veronica Stracqualursi contributed to this article.
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