Walmart to offer postal outlets

Walmart may be offering postal services at many of its stores.

A chain of independent packaging stores, called Goin’ Postal, has signed a master lease with the giant retailer that could affect as many as 2,000 Walmart stores.

Marcus Price, head of the Goin’ Postal Franchise Corp., told Linn’s: “This isn’t a deal with the Post Office as we will just be offering postal services and FedEx like any shipping store does.”

The Florida-based company is in the process of selling franchise locations, Price said.

His company plans to test the concept in a few Walmart stores by early summer 2015 and then roll out the stores nationwide, he said.

Goin’ Postal’s plans were first disclosed by the Save the Post Office website, which is edited and administered by literature professor Steve Hutkins.

The website said the new postal stores are not the same as the postal outlets that the United States Postal Service recently placed in Staples stores, provoking a protest by members of the American Postal Workers Union.

The Staples outlets were more similar to contract postal units because they offered only USPS products and services.

The Goin’ Postal stores are part of a USPS “Approved Shippers” program, in which stores also offer FedEx, UPS, DHL and other services. The stores charge a fee on top of the Postal Service’s prices, the website said.