The Postal Store has been optimized to provide mobile device users with improved shopping experiences, a timely move that is helping the retail website handle record sales during the coronavirus pandemic.
The optimization — which allows mobile users to easily navigate menus, view products and check out faster — occurred in March, shortly before customers began sheltering in place and shopping more online.
“We’re seeing visits, order and revenue numbers that are up to four times higher than what we see during the peak periods of the holidays,” said Diane Blizzard, the Postal Store’s program manager.
The Postal Store, part of usps.com, typically generates $800,000 in sales on an average day.
But since the national emergency began in mid-March, the store has averaged $1.8 million in daily revenue — with a single-day record of $4.2 million and a half-million visits set in April.
Similarly, traffic to the Postal Store site typically averages 110,000 visits per day, but that has soared to an average of 242,000 daily visits.
Overall, through May 15, the site’s total revenue during the pandemic exceeded $109 million, up 144 percent compared with the same period one year earlier.
“Nobody saw this coming, but we’re very pleased that we had a fully enhanced mobile-responsive Postal Store for our customers during this challenging time,” Blizzard said.
In addition to the improved user interface and quicker checkout process, the optimization offers a better search functionality that helps customers more easily find products and information.
More improvements are coming, including a guest checkout feature that will allow shoppers who don’t use the site frequently to make purchases more easily.
