Post Office open for business in Johnsville

By RANDA WAGNER –

It’s offi­cial!

Marvin’s Vil­lage Post Office in Johnsville is now also a Vil­lage Post Office for the United Postal Service.

A crowd gath­ered April 20 to help owner Ran­dolph Mar­vin and United States Postal ser­vice rep­re­sen­ta­tives make it official.

“We are excited!” Cincin­nati Dis­trict Man­ager Chu Falling-Star told Mar­vin. “This is our first Vil­lage Post Office in the State of Ohio, so you are mak­ing history!”

“What we’re call­ing a ‘vil­lage post office’ is a new con­cept,” explained David Van Allen, Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Pro­grams Spe­cial­ist for the USPS in Cleve­land. “The store owner is part­ner­ing with the postal ser­vice to pro­vide postal ser­vice and prod­ucts. It’s called a ‘vil­lage’ post office because it’s on a smaller scale: they offer flat-rate pri­or­ity envelopes and parcels, have post office boxes, and sell stamps. It’s a fairly new con­cept they came up last spring and this is the first one in Ohio. There’s 15 in the nation right now.”

Most post offices are owned by the USPS, as was the post office that closed in Johnsville in Octo­ber of 2010. A vil­lage post office is inde­pen­dently owned but pro­vides selec­tive postal services.

Employee Pam Sapp and owner Ran­dolph Mar­vin assist Tom Harden with a purchase.

“That’s what this was devel­oped for,” said Van Allen, “under­stand­ing that need. The vil­lage post offices are in loca­tions or com­mu­ni­ties that have no exist­ing post offices or lost their post office. It helps pro­vide sta­bil­ity for the com­mu­nity, like this Shauck Vil­lage Post Office — that’s the name we cre­ated for it.”

Van Allen said get­ting vil­lage post offices in place is not going as quickly as the USPS hoped, but it’s mov­ing along. The USPS also have other retail-type part­ner­ships, such as a ‘con­tract’ postal units like those con­sumers see in larger gro­cery stores. Those are almost full-service post offices. Vil­lage post office are note­quipped to weigh ran­dom pack­ages for ship­ping like the con­tract postal units are.

Store Owner Mar­vin said he has had his store in Johnsville since 1993 and applied to pro­vide postal ser­vices after the clos­ing of the Shauck Post Office next door. He received his ver­i­fi­ca­tion a cou­ple of weeks ago.

“As we con­tinue to see the mail vol­ume drop off, and folks are using elec­tronic com­mu­ni­ca­tions, this is the type of part­ner­ship we want to build,” said Falling Star, “to pro­vide the cus­tomer a one-stop shop. Not only can they pick up things they need, but also per­form quite a few of their postal trans­ac­tions with their local store.”

Post offices around the nation are being closed, noted Falling Star, in part because of a 43 billion-piece drop off within the five years.

USPS Dis­trict Man­ager Chu Falling-Star explains how flat-rate pri­or­ity mail operates.

“We have to make some tough deci­sions in some com­mu­ni­ties,” she acknowl­edged. “But here we are today, open­ing a vil­lage post office because we rec­og­nize the need of the com­mu­nity and most impor­tantly, we want to form a part­ner­ship with the local busi­ness owner to pro­vide a con­ve­nience for our customers.”

The postal ser­vice started their Flat Rate Pri­or­ity Mail­ings about two years ago. If it fits, it ships – one price — no mat­ter where you send it.

“The flat rate cam­paign has been ongo­ing for a few years now,” said Kathie Sherred, USPS Oper­a­tions Man­ager for this area of Ohio. What used to be a spe­cial pro­mo­tion before and after the hol­i­days is now a reg­u­lar pro­gram, she said.

“I think as we con­tinue to see the changes in con­sumer behav­ior, this is the type of com­mu­nity part­ner­ship we need,” Falling Star said. “We hope to look for oth­ers where they are needed.”

Posted by Randa Wagner on May 2 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.