The encyclopedia · Strategy & Leadership · Strategic decision · 1913
The 1913 US parcel post turned package shipping into a flat national market
Uniform parcel rates from January 1913 moved four million packages in five days and supercharged mail-order retail.
Montgomery Ward · Sears, Roebuck and Co.
the move
US parcel post service began on January 1, 1913 and was an instant success — in the first five days, 1,594 post offices reported handling more than four million packages. The new service gave farmers and small-town customers a cheap, uniform way to receive goods, ending their dependence on distant stores and private express companies.
The effect on mail-order retail was electric. Montgomery Ward, which had started with a one-page catalog in 1872, and Sears, Roebuck, which followed in 1893, saw catalog sales soar as rural free delivery plus parcel post turned the catalog into a national distribution channel. Farmers could even ship eggs and produce to customers by parcel post, creating new direct-from-farm trade.
why it works
- A single rate schedule made shipping cost predictable for buyer and seller.
- Rural free delivery carried parcels the last miles to farm gates.
- Catalog houses gained a distribution channel with no storefronts.
- Farmers gained a direct channel for eggs and produce to distant buyers.
what transfers
A pricing standard can create a market: when distribution cost becomes predictable, businesses can design products and promises around it.
what came after
Parcel post volumes grew for decades, and mail-order houses built dedicated plants and packaging around the service. The system became the US Postal Service's package arm, later competing with FedEx and UPS — private networks that copied the flat-rate, distance-based logic parcel post had proven.
references
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