Package Theft

The Problem

According to smiota.com, 25% of the country have had a package stolen, and 50% know someone who has had a package stolen. The worst part is that the police only make arrests in less than 10% of reported cases.

Amazon has already made an amazing product to prevent package theft: Amazon Key. The system where Amazon delivery people can drop off your package right inside your front door, leaving it safe and secure for you to find when you get home, but there’s still a few problems.

• People find it too invasive
• A lot of people have pets that could get out or even attack the delivery person
• The cost is a lot upfront.

Amazon Key is finding its way around some of these problems by giving the option for the delivery man to access your garage or your car instead.

Still, there’s an issue. The majority of online shoppers according to Business Insider’s Cooper Smith are Millennials and only 37% of millennials own homes (www.urban.org). There goes installing Amazon Key in many of the consumers’ homes. The car could still work, but it has to be a fairly new model to be compatible. Amazon Key is amazing, but can’t be used by a lot of people.

The Solution

An add-on to Amazon Key. That add-on would be a lockable box.

Why this?

• Renters can use this as opposed to the front door and garage method.
• Homeowners don’t have to worry about their homes and cars being opened by strangers.
• It’s cheaper than a smart lock system.

My Role

For this project, I was part of a team of four acting as if we had been hired by Amazon to further improve their fight against package theft. None of us had specific roles, but early on I found myself leading the group in ideation meetings and at times, delegating responsibilities. I also took the lead on building our survey in Qualtrics.

Our Process

When we first sat down together as a team, we decided to look at the competition. How have others fought the war on package theft?

• Doorbell cameras like Ring.
• P.O. Boxes, stores, and Amazon Locker used as delivery points.
• Doorman
• BoxLock

The Good and the Bad

Ring

The Good: You get to see the thief.

The Bad: It doesn’t stop a lot of thieves, and the police hardly do anything even with a solid video of the culprit’s face.

P.O Boxes, Amazon Locker, and local stores as a delivery point:

The Good: Your package is safe.

The Bad: This takes away the convenience of having your package delivered to your door.

Doorman:

The Good: You can have your package delivered to Doorman, and they will deliver it to your door at a specific time that you set.

The Bad: It is only running in select cities, and it’s expensive for the average online shopper starting at $5 a visit plus $2 a package. It also takes a little longer to get to you.

BoxLock:

The Good: You have a choice of many different fashionable boxes that will sit outside your home with a sturdy lock that opens only when it scans the barcode on the package or when you unlock it from your phone. It can be used for deliveries from any delivery service, and you get notifications on your phone when it’s been unlocked and locked, so you know your package has been delivered and is safe.

The Bad: Most delivery people from all sorts of delivery services don’t know what it is, ignores it, and places your package out in the open where it isn’t safe.

The Takeaway

We realized that some of these are great options and a lot of people use them, but they can be improved. The one that stuck out to us the most is BoxLock. It’s safe, a great design, and lets you know instantly when your package is delivered. We believe that if Amazon Key were to add a lockable box option like BoxLock or acquire BoxLock and integrate it into Amazon Key, there would be no reason to look anywhere else to keep your packages safe since it is a viable option for renters and home owners.

The Data

Once we found a way to improve Amazon Key, we created a survey to see if there was a market for the box, and the results did not disappoint. I created a simple survey in Qualtrics and led a meeting to create the questions for it.

You’ll see a few of the questions down below, but we also asked questions such as what age group are they in, do they rent or own their home, how many packages do they typically get a month, what’s the average cost of packages they typically buy, do they use any theft deterrents, if so, what do they use, and if they have ever chosen not to buy something online because they were afraid of a package being stolen.

With the limited amount of time we had, we were able to get the survey out to 80 people. 60 of them were between the ages of 18 and 29, so the results were impacted heavily by that age group, but they are also the ones that typically buy packages online the most. Because of the age group, 73% of our participants rent, and only 35% live in a house.

I thought that this might profoundly impact the following question…

We found that the majority chose to have their packages delivered to a local hub or a lockable box. We did include the prices of the products in here which could impact the choice people made, so we decided to ask what their option would be if the price wasn’t an issue:

The top two choices are now the box and second, the smart lock. Even most of the renters chose those two options. The smart lock got second to the lowest amount of votes when weighing in the cost, but when the price was no longer a factor it became the second-highest choice. More importantly, the box was consistently one of the top choices and always came ahead of the smart lock.

Conclusion

It would be in Amazon’s best interest to either create their own lockable box option or buy out BoxLock and incorporate it into Amazon Key. It is the favorite option and can work for anyone whether they own a home, rent, or live in an apartment.

With adding a lockable box as an option to Amazon Key, potential consumers will no longer fear having to open their homes and cars to strangers, the price won’t be nearly as big of a factor, and people will have peace of mind knowing that their box will not only be used when convenient but will be looked for by the delivery man upon arrival. Adding the lockable box to Amazon Key will only strengthen it.

Nikolas Sprunt was a student at Utah Valley University, where he studied Interaction & Design. The following article relates to DGM2250 taught by Professor Seth Christensen and representative of the skills learned.