May 28, 2012
The Age
IT’S the flaw in the online shopping experience: never being home to receive the goods during the day.
Now Australia Post is looking to make available parcel locker sites to accommodate the delivery of goods bought over the internet, to circumvent the problem of not being there to answer the door when the postie rings.
It follows the move by the online retailer Amazon, which has teamed up with the 7-Eleven convenience store chain in the US to provide lockers for parcel deliveries around the country. These are accessible via a digital password with 24-hour service.
Australia Post already has four ”click and collect’ parcel locker sites in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.
By mid-2012, Australia Post plans to have 24/7 parcel lockers at 10 sites around the country: five in Melbourne, four in Sydney and one in Brisbane.
The idea is that instead of having a parcel delivered to a home address, which can be inconvenient during work hours, customers can choose to have their items delivered to one of Australia Post’s secure, 24-hour-access parcel lockers.
Those who subscribe to the service receive a single-use six-digit code via SMS and email each time a parcel is ready for collection.
Under the scheme the 24/7 parcel lockers are currently available at in Bourke Street and in St Kilda in Melbourne, in St Leonards in northern Sydney and at the Brisbane GPO.
Another player is Coles, which has joined with technology provider TZ Limited, which is chaired by Wizard Home Loans founder Mark Bouris, to provide ”Click and Collect” refrigerated lockers.
This allows Coles to send customers a pin via an SMS or email so they can pick up their perishable goods from the lockers any time.
Stuart Harker, global retail and consumer advisory leader at PwC, says multi-channel retailing is not only here to stay, but will grow at a rapid pace. Speaking at the recent Bulky Goods Retailers Association/Axima forum, he said ”click and collect” would become the norm and sites would need to be developed to meet the demand.
”This will include new store locations, dedicated collection points and the new locker site,” he said.
”As a result, store infrastructure will need to support greater use of smartphone technology by customers.”
Mr Harker said the retailers and suppliers such as couriers must embrace the internet or face the closure of their business.
”Only those owners who understand the structural shift and embrace the new ecosystem will survive and grow revenue and value,”
he said. ”Retailers will not require as much floor space, while brand values of the shopping centre will become critical to success.
”So, investment in developing the brand will be required. New customer engagement models for the bulky goods centres need to be implemented; and this will come from using social media as well as the traditional techniques.”
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