How The Progress Of Mail Service In The US Correlate With Shipping Costs
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by: Adriana Noton
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Word Count: 601
Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2010 Time: 11:26 AM
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Regardless the type of business one decides to become engaged in, there will always be a need to get whatever the product from point of origin to the market. This has not always been such a significant part of doing business, though it has always been a part of the process. The greater societal development has become, the greater the need for speedy inexpensive shipping.
In the not too very distant past, the cost of getting things to the marketplace was one of the least worrisome parts of engaging in business. As recently as 1970 the cost of gasoline was a mere 35 cents per gallon and that was a ten cent per gallon increase over the previous decade. Farm fuel oil was exempt from taxes and so cost as little as 11 cents per gallon. These costs have obviously skyrocketed, even when the prices are adjusted for inflation.
In addition to the obvious increase in costs due to gasoline and diesel, packaging products have also increased in price because many of them are made from petroleum as well. Expenses due to paper products have also increased as has the cost of labor. In all, it is simply a much more expensive endeavor to move product than it ever has been in the past.
The United States feeling about the delivery of mail and the importance of that process was immortalized by the efforts of the Pony Express which began in 1860. The task was difficult and fraught with peril. The recruiting effort of the founder, William H Russell left little doubt how dangerous the enterprise would be as he even suggested his preference to hire orphans for the job.
As things develop, the easiest methods were harnessed first, so people who lived in the cities began receiving official free mail service in 1863. It would be three decades before an organization representing the interests of the farming community could coerce congress into officially launching rural free delivery. But even this new service did not reach all Americans, the west was largely without service.
The quest to provide truly equal delivery of the mail to every part of the US continued as Congress designated first the waterways, then the railways official postal service. The effort was dynamic but disproportionate. Even for the areas East of St Joseph Missouri which marked the end of the early phases of the railway cities received free mail delivery, but farm areas did not. It took the effort of the National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry a farming advocacy group started in 1867 and 33 years to get the service started.
Rural free delivery, the meaning behind the letters in the TV show Mayberry R. F. D. Came to be synonymous for living in a distant isolated area. The notion of making postal delivery available to all was a grand one, but the cost of providing it would eventually catch up to the young nation who had to initiate postage stamps and compulsory prepayment to keep it.
None of these expenses related to getting the product to market is a surprise, except for the increasing percentage cost of shipping to the overall expense of being in business at all. It is important for new business owners to be sure their product has an eager and active market for their product before they invest too much in expansion. If they are not careful, the cost of delivering the goods can exceed the cost of the product itself.
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