USPS Gearing Up For Busy Holiday Season

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - First comes the shopping and then the shipping.

A lot of people will be mailing gifts to loved ones all over the world this holiday season.

After all the effort to purchase gifts, you want to make sure they arrive to your loved ones on time.

Employees with the Postal Service will be working hard to make sure that happens.

Pittsburgh Postmaster Debbie Gless said the Postal Service starts gearing up for the holidays in June.

"We look at staffing, we look at historical data, we look at the volume, we look at wait time in lines, we look at the transactions. We take over the window and we basically start our planning then," Gless said.

The Postal Service is expecting to deliver about 15.5 billion pieces of mail this holiday season.

More people than ever before are doing their shopping online.

One survey found 59 percent of people plan to shop online over the Thanksgiving weekend. Just 36 percent say they will shop in stores.

The Postal Service is anticipating a double digit growth in packages alone.

"We actually have two waves of package delivery. We have those that are ordering online and then we have those traditional send it to your loved ones and your family and friends," Gless said.

Some 600 new seasonal Postal Service employees will help keep everything on track locally.

However, there are some tips you need to keep in mind when preparing your packages:

• Don't use commas or periods in your address.
• Mark the package "fragile" or "perishable" when appropriate.
• If you're reusing a box, make sure all other addresses are covered or blacked out.

Once your presents are packed up, get them to the post office as soon as possible.

Dec. 23 is the absolute last day if you're shipping in the United States.

"Mid-December, you want to make sure you're heading to the Postal Service. Again, we have the Express Priority that you can mail two days in advance and we will get it there and we do deliver on Christmas," Gless said.

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