They’re actually doing alright on that list — and Belgium isn’t doing too badly either, especially considering it used to rank below Moldova a few years ago. That said, Belgium’s postal service is awful in every possible way. I once had packet losses of 50%, and the ping was miserable too.
During COVID, I needed stamps. The local post office? Closed. So I tried buying them online — and yes, you can order stamps online. But guess how they deliver them? By snail mail. Classic.
Now compare that to Germany. While Germany isn’t exactly a digital pioneer, its postal system has consistently performed well. I think they even offered a letter-scanning service at some point. And for years now, you’ve been able to print stamps at home. No printer? No problem — just write a code on the envelope with a pen. Every stamp includes a tracking code. As for those Amazon parcel lockers? Germany had them ages ago. And if I’m not mistaken, the idea was borrowed from former East Germany.
USPS is actually fairly reliable, but the post offices themselves feel run-down and neglected. Sometimes the solutions are simple. If I were running USPS, I’d tour post offices around the world to see what unique services they offer. What can we adopt, license, or copy? How are they staying profitable? There’s so much to learn.
As a data point CardMarket is an online Europe-wide market for collectible trading cards. Delivery from Italian sellers is usually much slower than from pretty much everywhere else and Italian sellers invariably sell at a discount (even when selling English language cards).
https://expatcircle.com/cms/underrated-quality-of-life-indic...
They’re actually doing alright on that list — and Belgium isn’t doing too badly either, especially considering it used to rank below Moldova a few years ago. That said, Belgium’s postal service is awful in every possible way. I once had packet losses of 50%, and the ping was miserable too.
During COVID, I needed stamps. The local post office? Closed. So I tried buying them online — and yes, you can order stamps online. But guess how they deliver them? By snail mail. Classic.
Now compare that to Germany. While Germany isn’t exactly a digital pioneer, its postal system has consistently performed well. I think they even offered a letter-scanning service at some point. And for years now, you’ve been able to print stamps at home. No printer? No problem — just write a code on the envelope with a pen. Every stamp includes a tracking code. As for those Amazon parcel lockers? Germany had them ages ago. And if I’m not mistaken, the idea was borrowed from former East Germany.
USPS is actually fairly reliable, but the post offices themselves feel run-down and neglected. Sometimes the solutions are simple. If I were running USPS, I’d tour post offices around the world to see what unique services they offer. What can we adopt, license, or copy? How are they staying profitable? There’s so much to learn.