Canada Post won't be emailing your snail mail, but goes high-tech in other ways

From town criers to switchboard operators to newspaper typesetters, technology has made many jobs redundant.

Mail delivery will be added to the list of extinct services eventually, but it’s not going out without a fight. In Canada and the United States, the service is going digital, but in distinctly different ways.

Canada Post is working to improve tracking and parcel delivery, says Anick Losier, spokesperson for Canada Post.

“Our focus is in parcel delivery – which is growing at a 20 per cent rate in Canada – and we deliver two out of three parcels ordered online,” she told Yahoo Canada via email.

Emailing the mail

In a pilot project called Informed Delivery, the United States Postal Service (USPS) emails a preview of that day’s mail to customers’ inboxes. It’s currently only available in three regions: New York City, Southern Connecticut and Northern Virginia.

The service is free and includes a photo of the outside of each letter-sized piece of mail that will be in the user’s mailbox later that day. Magazines and catalogues may be added later.

“This pilot has the potential to bring the mail experience more directly into the daily digital and mobile lives of our customers,” said Zy Richardson, a spokeswoman for the USPS.

“The Postal Service continues to invest in digital technology to improve our ability to provide enhanced services and information to both senders and receivers of mail,” she said.

You can’t beat the post office

This is not a unique idea. In 2013, Outbox launched a paid service in Austin, Texas and San Francisco, Calif. that would see customers’ mail redirected to their company, where they would open and digitize it.

Outbox’s service, which also let customers decide what to do with the mail — have it delivered, shredded or even cancel future mail from the sender — was far more involved than the USPS service.

However, Outbox was short lived. In his testimony to the House Oversight Committee about broader reforms to the USPS, co-founder Will Davis explained how his business failed when the post office wouldn’t allow the mail to be intercepted.

Not willing to give up, Outbox tried another tactic, picking up the already-delivered mail from homes, but it was a cumbersome and expensive process, and the company shut down after two years.

In a WNYC interview, Davis explained that the USPS told them “no one is going to want Outbox because digital is a fad, it will only work in Europe.” The USPS declined to respond to these statements.

“In the period of 20 minutes, they destroyed this dream that we had ably and passionately pursued,” said Davis.

The USPS already takes a photo of each letter, about 155.4 billion pieces last year. Used to help sort the mail and occasionally requested by law enforcement, the images are kept for up to 30 days.

Canada Post doesn’t take photos of the mail.

“We don’t scan letters in the same manner … privacy laws are very different here than they are in the States,” says Losier.

How is Canada Post innovating?

A concept store in Richmond Hill, Ont. offers drive-thru parcel pickup, self-serve shipping and a fitting room, where you can try on clothes and return them immediately if you don’t want to keep them.

“For the first half of 2015, the number of parcels from fashion retailers delivered increased by 18 per cent while in the Greater Toronto Area, they grew 28 per cent compared to the previous year,” says Canada Post.

That seems more useful than getting a photo of the mail that’s going to land in your mailbox later that day.