Just in time for the holiday season to begin, the US Postal Service is cutting down on their prices in order to attract more e-commerce business. Prices can be expected to fall as much as 58% for certain priority mail delivery, which means good news for retailers and consumers, but bad news for major competitors UPS and FedEx who recently announced that they will be raising prices. On September 7th a 10-pound package shipped 500 miles by the post office went from costing $14.66 to $7.40, and the same package would cost around $9.86 via FedEx or UPS. These recent price cuts are just one part of USPS’s long term strategy to gain as much of the billion-dollar e-commerce pie as possible, as their business has been grown 20% over the past 5 years. So we’re excited to see how these prices effect holiday shipping, and how UPS and/or FedEx will respond. (Source: WSJ)