What Parcel Lockers Are Bad At, But It’s Good For Last-Mile Delivery

Ann Gregory
Predict
Published in
3 min readNov 22, 2023

In the post-covid world and e-commerce craze, the last-mile delivery is living though seismic changes. Businesses are looking for smart, automated, and consumer-friendly solutions that not only provide a quality level of package delivery but also fit into the landscape of sustainable development within the global supply chain.

Photo by Storyset from Freepik

Parcel lockers, are gaining a foothold within the realm of last-mile delivery. The global parcel lockers market will be $2,148.6 million by the end of 2027, which means growth at 17.8% of compound annual growth rate.

The reason why the parcel locker market balloons is apparent: parcel lockers imply a disruptive power that is changing the industry and blazing the trail for the future. But there are things parcel lockers are not really good at. And it’s good news for the industry.

The Dark Side of Parcel Lockers that Shines Brightly on the Last Mile

Without any lengthy introductions, it’s just enough to say that these sins of parcel lockers are a genuine virtue to the last-mile delivery. Let’s check them out.

Parcel Lockers are Bad at Slow Ineffective Delivery

Parcel lockers cut driving distance for a courier dramatically. Instead of going to every house or apartment to handle parcels to consumers, a courier leaves all packages in a smart locker. In fact, by shipping parcels to lockers, a courier can process the same volume of packages as for to-door delivery but with 62% less driving. Outrageous!

Parcel Lockers are Bad at Providing a Poor Customer Experience

It’s really hard for a parcel locker to spoil a customer experience, everything way too frictionless and convenient. A consumer does not have to adjust their plans to get a parcel delivered by a courier or wait in line at post office. On top of that, a possibility to send a returning package from self service lockers contributes much to failure of providing an awful customer experience.

Parcel Lockers are Bad at Increasing Your Last-Mile Delivery Costs

In fact, parcel lockers do the opposite. For instance, automated parcel lockers by Omnic provide up to 900% of costs savings on the last-mile delivery. Given the fact that last-mile accounts for 53% of all delivery expenses, parcel lockers appear to be a terrible cost accelerator.

Parcel Lockers are Bad at Killing the Planet

They simply don’t contribute to the carbon footprint of the last-mile delivery industry. Instead, parcel lockers are known to cut emissions as couriers drive less to deliver all parcels while consumers just walk to a nearest parcel locker. As a result, one parcel locker can save up to 13,845kg of CO2 that is equal to purification of air with 2,769 trees.

The Bad Example is Contagious

The above-mentioned facts about worst characteristics of parcel lockers speak for themselves. But they are indeed good for your last-mile delivery, so why don’t you follow that bad example and adopt parcel lockers for your company? You’ll fail at growing costs, spoiling user experience, and polluting the air, but your company will surely benefit from such misfiring!

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Ann Gregory
Predict
Writer for

Partnerships Associate Director at Omnic, Tech Visionary | https://www.omnic.net/