Regardless the type of business one decides to become engaged in, there will always be a need to get whatever the product from point of origin to the market. This has not always been such a significant part of doing business, though it has always been a part of the process. The greater societal development has become, the greater the need for speedy inexpensive shipping.

Adjusting the costs for inflation, a gallon of gasoline in 1970 would cost approximately $1.60 compared to its current price of over twice that. But more important than the outright cost of fuel is the inconsistency and inability to control that cost. Unlike most products that adhere to a supply and demand interaction with regard to price, fuel is unique in the introduction of international politics to the equation. In the early 1970s the so called oil crisis was not the result of inadequate supply, but a conscious decision by members of OPEC to reduce production and delivery to the US as punishment for American support to Israel.

But the cost of getting goods around is not exclusively due to the cost of transportation. Packages require packaging, and much of that is also dependent on the price of oil, so we have double the impact on business. But in addition to these costs, the size and geography of the US has always had an impact on delivering mail and packages.

From the beginning of the nation the notion of delivering packages and mail was an especially important process. The postal service was a mammoth enterprise with a truly nation building impact. Benjamin Franklin became our first postmaster general in 1775, earlier than the signing of the declaration of independence. Unfortunately, mail delivery was not equally available to all Americans.

The impetus for this daunting task was the pathetic state of mail delivery to that point. The gold rush had accelerated pioneer travel to California, but there was no effective means for getting packages there. The population of Los Angeles did not receive notification that California had been admitted to the union for over six weeks after it had occurred.

The idea of free postal service throughout the United States was egalitarian but in its practical execution it was expensive. There was considerable resistance to the notion for that expense and because the companies that made their living delivering mail to the farmlands believed it would destroy their business, stores in town feared it would reduce the number of visits by rural residents and would therefore decrease their market.

As it turned out, everyone survived the concept and it became so famous it appeared regularly in TV with the program known as Mayberry R. F. D. Though most fans were unaware of the meaning behind the letters. The concept of free mail delivery began to crumble in 1847 with the introduction of the postage stamp. The young nation realized they needed to find an equitable way to pay for the service and made the use of prepaid postage compulsory in 1855.

Today we take the ability to transfer packages across the nation and across the globe for granted. We even have the ability to get things delivered throughout the US overnight and anywhere in the world in just a few days. This has allowed the process of doing business to become and remain truly international. But despite all our progress, it is folly to enter into any business with carefully assessing the cost related to shipping.

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