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The concept of retail has at its basis the presentation of goods or services to a consumer base in the effort to entice the customers to make a purchase. In all the time that capitalism has been in effect, despite its many forms and regulations this basic tenet has not changed. What has made a significant change is the cost related to this shipping of products to retail facilities.

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 it is not just the cost of petroleum that has made it more expensive to move product from place to place. The cost of packaging, much of it made from petroleum has also increased. We can seen the increase in our supermarkets, the cost of paper bags had always been more than for plastic bags, but that is no longer the case.

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 quest to provide truly equal delivery of the mail to every part of the US continued as Congress designated first the waterways, then the railways official postal service. The effort was dynamic but disproportionate. Even for the areas East of St Joseph Missouri which marked the end of the early phases of the railway cities received free mail delivery, but farm areas did not. It took the effort of the National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry a farming advocacy group started in 1867 and 33 years to get the service started.

The fairness of the practice belied the cost of delivering the service. Eventually the idea of prepaying for postal service was made compulsory to deal with the expense of making the deliveries. This cost would be amplified as the effort to extend service to the west all the way to California was attacked in earnest. The pony express was probably one of the nations more notable and romantic efforts in the continued work to assure total international package delivery.

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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