Postal Service To Drop Packing Services

After Friday, the U.S. Postal Service no longer will offer packing services at its post offices.

The agency said Wednesday it is abandoning its “pack and send” wrapping service in the face of a ruling that it must establish a set of uniform prices for preparing packages for mailing.

The decision is a victory for a coalition of small packing stores that had challenged the agency’s wrapping services as a government-subsidized action aimed at destroying their businesses. And it was a defeat for Postmaster General Marvin T. Runyon, who had argued that the agency urgently needs additional sources of revenue if it is to keep the cost of mailing a letter at 32 cents.