5 Las Vegas post offices open Sundays for holiday shipping

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Santa’s not the only one putting in the hours to deliver presents this holiday season.

Five Las Vegas post offices will offer holiday retail hours Sunday and Dec. 16 to make holiday shipping more convenient.

The U.S. Postal Service expects a record year for parcel delivery, according to spokesman David Rupert. About 900 million packages are expected to be delivered nationwide between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day, the Postal Service’s peak season.

Holiday shipping

The two weeks before Christmas are the Postal Service’s busiest time of the season; this year it expects to deliver 400 million packages in that time. Nearly 3 billion pieces of first-class mail — including greeting cards — are expected to be delivered Dec. 17-23.

“We just want to make (shipping) as convenient as possible for people, especially in Las Vegas, where everybody has a different schedule,” Rupert said.

Despite the increase in shipping during the holidays, the Postal Service’s financial condition has taken a hit in recent years as consumers turn toward digital correspondence. It lost a net total of $69 billion between 2007 and 2018 and is expected to lose tens of billions more over the next decade.

According to a Dec. 4 report from the federal Task Force on the United States Postal System, the Postal Service lost $3.9 billion in fiscal 2018.

Looming deadlines

According to the Postal Services’s website, Dec. 20 is the suggested deadline for priority and first-class mail and packages, and Dec. 22 is the deadline for its priority mail express service.

Rupert said the Postal Service also offers self-serve kiosks — some of which are open 24 hours a day — and pay-at-home options that can help customers avoid long lines.

“We’re trying to be as accommodating as possible,” he said. “We encourage everyone to mail early and mail often.”

Contact Bailey Schulz at bschulz@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0233. Follow @bailey_schulz on Twitter.