Postal woes

The U.S. Postal service is having trouble with the basics of mail delivery in Indiana:

Frustrated Hoosiers’ long Postal Service delays gain added attention

Mail and packages are being delayed by days, weeks and months, and sometimes just go missing. Animals are even dying.

For us at the newspaper, this manifests itself in daily phone calls from some of our subscribers who are frustrated that they can’t receive our publication in a timely manner.

Most folks are understanding, but even the most patient and loyal subscriber can’t be expected to renew their subscription if the paper isn’t showing up reliably.

While the relative number of subscribers affected is small for the moment, I see it as a fundamental threat to our business, given that mail delivery is likely the only way we can affordably get the paper to our readers.

Here’s the column I wrote about this issue in last week’s paper:

Postal delivery woes hit some WWN subscribers
By Chris Hardie

Most of our subscribers receive their Western Wayne News in a timely manner via our partnership with the U.S. Postal Service. But we know that some of you have been experiencing an increase in delays or times when the newspaper doesn’t arrive at all. We are in regular contact with the USPS about this, and they are telling us that due to staffing, infrastructure and other challenges, there is a general overload of mail-handling capacity in Indiana right now, and it may be some time before things get better.

All of the papers we mail out go to the Cambridge City post office on Wednesday mornings, and we think their team does a great job. But some papers destined for addresses in or near Wayne County take a detour to a USPS facility in Indianapolis first; we’ve asked why and there doesn’t seem to be a good reason. From there, how fast it’s processed and sent back out to this side of the state seems to vary widely; a customer told us last week that she just received a paper we mailed out to her in November.

Here’s the thing: we rely entirely on USPS to deliver the paper, so when they’re having issues, it concerns us greatly. We are a small enough customer that we don’t have the influence to demand improvements, and yet we also don’t have any other option but to keep working with them on it. There’s no team of newspaper carriers we can pay to go door-to-door as a backup option.

If you experience a mail delivery issue, please contact us about it, either by emailing contact@westernwaynenews.com or calling our office at (765) 478-5448 x1. We report each late or missing paper to the USPS. They’ve also told us that it’s useful for you to contact your local post office directly.

We appreciate your understanding and flexibility as we try to navigate these challenges.