Contract units aid USPS

RALEIGH -- Yogesh Manocha wanted to increase foot traffic in his Citgo station convenience store. So between the cash register and the drink cooler, he recently opened a post office.

Manocha is the latest Triangle business owner to open a Contract Postal Unit, miniature post offices owned and operated by private businesses. CPUs, as they are called, offer all the services of traditional post offices, except P.O. boxes, and allow the cash-strapped U.S. Postal Service to extend its reach with minimal investment.

With a ribbon-cutting ceremony last week, the CPU in Manocha's Lighthouse Food Mart on Buck Jones Road became the 21st of its kind in the Triangle. While some may consider post offices a dwindling, old-fashioned business, they still attract enough people for an entrepreneur like Manocha to see them as a boon to his store.

The Lighthouse Food Mart CPU looks like a traditional post office, except smaller, with red, white and blue U.S. Postal Service logos and a wall display of packaging options for domestic and international shipping.

But CPUs offer much more flexible hours. Most CPUs open earlier and stay open later than traditional post offices, and operate seven days a week.

"The convenience that we're providing to the neighboring community is great, because of the longer hours and because we're open on weekends," Manocha said.

CPUs can be less crowded than traditional post offices, particularly during the busy holiday season. The Postal Service has a goal of a five-minute wait for customers, said Annie Everette, station manager of the nearby Avent Ferry Post Office, and CPUs are needed to meet that goal.

The Postal Service has been working on the concept of CPUs for some time, before the recent financial problems and the closing of some post offices, said Tammy Apple, a retail specialist with the Greensboro U.S. Postal Service District, which covers the Triangle. Since October, Apple said, both revenue and CPU openings have increased.

One of the goals of CPUs is to return to the localized, neighborhood feel of post offices, said acting Raleigh Postmaster Cheryl Picard.

"This is a growing environment for the U.S. Postal Service because the Postal Service does not have to invest any revenue into the privately owned units," Picard said.

The Postal Service also does not have to staff CPUs since they are run by store employees. Manocha and his team had to go through two days of training from the Postal Service to learn how to handle packaging, shipments and other customer requests.

"I've learned so much," Manocha said. "I always took stuff to the post office before, and I had no idea everything it had to go through after I dropped it off."

Store owners purchase CPUs from the Postal Service and receive a portion of the revenue they generate. Each supplier must demonstrate to the Postal Service that the CPU will be able to make enough money to sustain itself. Most are found in busy areas that do not have another post office nearby. The Lighthouse CPU is the only post office in the Crossroads area; the next closest one is the Avent Ferry station, which will lend a hand when needed.

For Manocha, the paperwork was the most difficult task, but he says that has been worth the trouble because he has noticed an increase in customers since he opened the CPU.