Tracking Icon

Enter your invoice reference number to track your parcel in real time!

Please enter the billing postcode you provided when making your booking.

X Button
User Icon
Login to take advantage of Saved Baskets and Frequent Addresses!
No account yet? Register here
Forgotten password? Click here
Close
Your basket
Want to speed up the checkout process?
Login or Register here
£0.000.00
Go To Checkout
Excellent on Trustpilot
Up to £100 free cover on all parcel deliveries
tick We are IOSS-Ready headset 020 8310 1362
a:3:{s:8:"keywords";s:0:"";s:11:"description";s:141:"Private parcel industries in most countries seemed to start as a monopoly and have progressed to the multi competitive business it is today. ";s:5:"title";s:52:"History of USA Parcel Delivery and Post Office | WPS";}
Array
(
    [keywords] => 
    [description] => Private parcel industries in most countries seemed to start as a monopoly and have progressed to the multi competitive business it is today. 
    [robot] => noindex, nofollow
)
Compare Major Couriers,
Find the Best parcel
delivery prices
The only site offering £100 free cover
From
To
Weight
kg
Length
cm
Width
cm
Height
cm
Calculator Icon Unit Calculator
Send a Pallet Send a document

Back to news... 04 August 2011 The History Of Parcel Delivery In The USA

usa.jpgPrivate parcel industries in most countries seemed to start as a monopoly and have progressed to the multi competitive business it is today. The USA was a prime example with the United States Post Office having a full monopoly of the parcel business until 1852, this resulted in inflated prices for delivering parcels which caused a great deal of discontent in the country. The discontent was caused by the fact that they had total control over the mail and the postmaster position was in the gift of the local political leaders.

Wells Fargo was one of many private companies formed to break the monopoly and they were formed to provide banking and express services. The pioneers of the eighteen hundreds required both these services as they explored the far reaches of the USA and safe and secure methods of transferring parcels and monies became of great importance. Wells Fargo became a major stagecoach business to transport the required parcels but this was not always quick enough and so the Pony Express came into being.

They had been challenged by the Butterfield Overland Stage but when this company failed Wells Fargo had a complete monopoly until 1869. In 1869 the railways were in full flow and they were snaking their iron roads across the country and suddenly there was a transport system that could transport in bulk at a fraction of the price of the stagecoach. Parcel offices were set up at railway stations and provided a joint income along with the passenger business. The chaos caused by the numerous differently owned railways resulted in government installing the United States Railroad Administration which became the Railway Express Agency after the First World War.

In 1913 the parcel post had begun and this provided the rural areas with parcel and packaging service which became vary popular as there was a door to door parcel delivery. The Rural Free Delivery helped increase trade and the post office monopoly was complete again. Wells Fargo left the parcel and express business and polarised their industry in the banking business.

The system remained the same for many years until the “Hub and Spoke” system based around the airlines was developed in 1973 by Federal Express (Fed Ex) and with deregulation of the business in 1977, the overnight parcel business came into its own and this system was rolled out over the whole of the country and still exists to this day.

If you are looking to send a parcel UK to USA, make sure you see our full list of delivery and courier services.

 

Door-to-Door or Drop Off services available
We are the only site that offers £100 free cover on all parcels!
Online tracking
Close button
Weight
lbs
Length
in
Width
in
Height
in
Calculator
Weight
kg
Length
cm
Width
cm
Height
cm
Use these values

Oops! I've gone and forgotten my password! Email me a reminder...

Please note this action can not be undone.

Message
X button

You're using the smart choice - me.worldwide-parcelservices.co.uk pays you back 1% credit for all your purchases - remember to bookmark or go direct.

We use cookies to improve your experience, including to personalise content, to provide useful features, and to analyse our traffic and measure performance. By using this site, you agree to our use of cookies.

×
Cookie Preferences
Intro
Essential Cookies
Non-Essential Cookies

About Cookies and your Privacy

When you visit any web site, it may safely store or retrieve information in cookies. This information might be about you, your preferences or your device and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to. The information does not usually directly identify you, but it can give you a more personalised and consistent web experience.

We respect your right to privacy, so you can choose not to allow some types of cookies. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings. However, blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Some cookies are essential and the website would not function without them.

Always Active

Essential Cookies

These cookies are essential for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems.

These are usually to do with keeping track of information between page views like your privacy preferences, logging in or tracking a shopping basket

You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not then work. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable information.

The essential cookies we set are:

  • PHPSESSID - A unique reference to your browser session on our website. This allows us to keep track of things like your basket and whether you are logged in. This cookie will expire after the browser is closed
  • showVAT - This cookie tracks your preference if you want to show prices inc or ex VAT. This cookie persists between your browser sessions.
  • plii - This cookie ensures you are kept logged in to the website during your session.
  • nfPP-* - These cookies store your preferences regarding cookie preferences, like if you have accepted the notice and if you have optionally disabled non essential cookies. These persist between browser sessions
  • regular_shipper - Tracks if you are a regular shipper with us. This cookie persists between your browser sessions.
  • referrer_link and last_invoice_id - These help us keep track of where you came from and what your last invoice with us was so we can improve your experience.
  • surveySeen - When we show surveys this remembers that you have already seen a survey so you don't keep receiving it.
  • GlobalSign -  We use GlobalSign to provide our SSL certificate
  • PostcodeAnywhere -  We use PostcodeAnywhere to provide address lookup services for your convenience

Non-Essential Cookies

These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. Some information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not know when you have visited our site, and will not be able to monitor its performance and make improvements.

  • AddThis: We use AddThis for social sharing that happens from the "'Share This" website links. The cookie allows users to socially share content. AddThis might collect data for the purposes of Online Behavioural Advertising. This might include information like where visitors came from and which type of browser the user is using. This might also include your IP address.
  • Facebook: We use conversion tracking from Facebook to help us understand how effective campaigns are from Facebook.
  • Google AdWords Conversion: We use conversion tracking to help us understand how effective our digital campaigns are.
  • Google Analytics: We use Google Analytics to collect information about how visitors use our website. For example, we collect details of the site where the visitor has come from and the total number of times a visitor has been to our website.
  • Google Dynamic Remarketing: We use these tracking tools to track user behaviour over time and across third party sites to improve the effectiveness of our online advertising. We collect information about what ads users view and whether they click on the ads. We use this information to improve and customise our advertising.
  • Google Tag Manager: We use Google Tag Manager to track user behaviour, traffic analysis and marketing optimisation.
  • Hotjar: We use Hotjar to help collect  information about how visitors use our website and analyse user behaviour across our site.