Was kind of hoping this is something individual home owners could install near the front door so packages aren't left on the steps.
If you fill out the form it asks what kind of property you have, and single family homes is an option, but then it says "your property does not meet our requirements at this time." I wonder if enough people select that though...
This seems more targeted at apartment/condo buildings that have been wrestling with the mountain of Prime packages that show up daily and are either stolen or managed by a building superintendent that doesn't want to deal with them anymore.
A few apartment buildings have their own, exclusive, Amazon Locker. Other apartments have general "large package" mail boxes, for parcels from any sender. This seems to be the next step to merge these ideas, giving landlords an Amazon-specific large package mailbox.
My buddy lived in a rather nice condo complex in Chicago, with about 100 units in it. This was literally the reason he sold his place. Any time anything was sent to him there was a 50% chance he would get it.
I'm not sure if we just got a unit plagued with issues, but the Package Concierge my apartment complex had installed has has been offline more than it has been online. It's constantly awaiting servicing.
2. the DB train network is installing delivery boxes on train stations and subway stations, including refrigerated ones for food deliveries, allowing for pickup on your commute home
3. Smart cars (those tiny city hoppers most Americans seem to hate) can be outfitted with a small module that allows delivery services to access the trunk, turning them into mobile delivery boxes
Amazon is reinventing the whole daily retailing experience piece by piece.
There does not seem anyone on the market now can be a meaningful competitor at all. The close-loop virtuous cycle now extends to a degree that probably only Alibaba can rival (in China).
I don't think this is Bezos' original vision, but Amazon grows to a point such ideas just come out naturally.
The resistance seems futile now, all retailers should consider how to operate in the model created by Amazon.
The difference with Amazon is that they keep innovating which is something WalMart didn't keep doing. Amazon pours money back into the company. As long as they keep doing that, I don't mind that they lead. When they stop, someone else will step in.
I think that Walmart is a very strong competitor, and too easily dismissed by the tech crowd that wants to pretend they're unsophisticated because they aren't based on the west coast.
In many ways, Walmart is in a much stronger competitive position than Amazon, as they have "warehouses"/physical retail outlets within a reasonable driving distance of most Americans, and they're equipped to handle products that are not really feasible for someone like Amazon, who is still almost completely dependent on parcel carriers for access to the customer. Walmart does not have such external dependencies and Amazon is really only needed when the product is so obscure that Walmart wouldn't carry it.
Walmart has next-day grocery pickup, electronic receipts and payment via Walmart Pay, and several other high-tech features available. They've been acquiring e-commerce upstarts like Jet and Bonobos. A crew of Walmart delivery drivers that covered a 5 mile radius from each store is Amazon's nightmare.
I don't think it's wise to count Walmart out. The biggest challenge for them is internal, and whether forward-looking ecommerce advocates can win out against the visionless MBA types in resource competition.
Walmart has no centralized warehouses. Everything is custom-picked at third-party logistic facilities for all the suppliers and trucked directly to the stores.
So let's compare an order made with Amazon and one made at Walmart. The Amazon order is made with pickers standing at a station while robotic carts move stock around them. The Walmart order is made by a worker that walks the retail store gathering items off the shelves alongside customers.
I'm guessing Amazon still has an upper hand at this point.
Yes! We could call it electronic mail or e-mail for short.
Am I missing something about Outbox? Why wouldn't they just give the people using this service a P.O box corporate office to use as their 'address' when getting something delivered?
I'm sure they thought of that. Probably some way USPS can refuse to acknowledge it or something.
I've always wondered why private mailbox numbers even need to exist. The numbers could be virtual and all of the packages could be in one place to be retrieved by workers on demand. Perhaps there's some sort of clause USPS has to defeat an idea like that or an arbitrarily low limit for how many #s can be at a physical location etc.
There are mail services that are pretty close to this in practice. Earth Class Mail is an example. Fairly expensive, but if you use them for your mailing address, they will receive the mail, scan the envelope, and provide you the option to have the mail physically forwarded, opened and digitally scanned, and/or junked.
Introducing Amazon Chest™ -- A specialty smart container that allows letters and packages to be delivered right to the front of your home. Carriers simply place packages in the receptacle and an app on your phone notifies you that a package or letter has arrived.
That's what made be like "It's just a matter of time now".
I really have no issue with Amazon overall. I am just tired of these blatant products to invade privacy (The Echo with the camera and this, and probably a few others I am forgetting)
I have one of these in my building. The result is that there is always a giant pile of packages surrounding the lockers. I talked to the delivery people about why, they said the the buttons are too hard to push, so they just leave the packages laying around and nobody really minds anyway, so it's not worth their time. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Mine uses Parcel Pending, which seems to be the same thing.
Amusingly, LuxerOne, Parcel Pending and this Amazon thing all seem to be using the same device, so this is either very convergent evolution or there's just one Chinese whitebox manufacturer for these lockers and everyone just slaps their logo on them.
I was noticing that too, all of these package lockers look almost identical, with the same (easily identified) crappy touch screen and qr scanner. It would be interesting to see someone actually innovate in this field, but I'm curious what that would look like.
My apartment building has a secure room instead of a locker. 24 hour access is nice but like another user mentioned, often the packages just end up in random places in the secure room and you have to go on a hunt to find them.
You're thinking of a private/residential Amazon Locker, which do exist (there's one in the student halls near me). I suspect that Amazon install them for free if there's enough people likely to use it. Amazon Hub is a different product.
Seems like they were launched around similar times (both came out in 2011) so that a definite possibility. However from what I know about Waterloo's design projects (as this was a final year design project) this project was most likely started in 2010, so technically amazon's locker came out later. Although who knows who copies who when things get released so close to each other.
I would imagine that Amazon began working on their solution for some time before its release as well. Not that it matters to me who beat who but just to point out that they still likely started around the same time.
I did some digging in the /r/uwaterloo subreddit and it turns out that some customers were getting packages at no cost. Perhaps it wasn't financially viable.
I used it a bunch of times and having it on campus was pretty great. It was way safer than having the packages left randomly at the front of your residence. So as far as a "solved problem" is concerned, this definitely wasn't solved in any shape or form at Waterloo until BufferBox arrived.
>There are 3,000 Packstation machines in Germany[1] and 90 percent of the people living in Germany were within ten minutes of a DHL Packstation.[2]
There are also Paketboxen, which are smaller installations for residential areas. The whole system works pretty well for me. The one big downside is, that it only works with DHL/Deutsche Post parcel. They are the dominant player here, but sometimes delivery by them is not available.
I lived briefly in Koln, my local DHL driver was a fucking asshole. Driving by my home, marking me as "not home", not leaving the notices and shit. It was always the same guy, I literally saw him pass by me waiting for him, then checking the delivery status it was marked as "undeliverable" or "recipient not home". What a fucking dickhead.
The DHL member card allowed me to send packages to the nearest post office or a Packstation. I just used the former. The cunt actually tried to tell me it was for German citizens only, I told him to give me the fucking package (containing the membership card) and get lost. Turkish piece of shit.
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Yes! DHL is notoriously understaffed or incompetent in my Berlin neighbourhood. When i order packages to my apartment, often the guy will not even enter the building. He will drop off the package at some random neighbour 1 block away or the next Post office which as well is way too small and understaffed and i will recieve the notification card 2-3 days later (Email is fine though). Going to the post office, waiting in queue for 20-30 min is pretty normal.
Since i am using Packstationen this problem has largely gone away and works perfectly for 95% of my deliveries.
Ah, another Berlin DHL sufferer. Either they don't even ring the bell, or drop it off at some neighbour that isn't there, or at a shop that closes at 4pm. Packstation has been a god's end, next to my supermarket anyway, 24/7 usable and having the doors plop open makes it feel like a Christmas calendar.
They are nice, but it's a bit of a trade-off: 50% chance there is an empty opening in the station, 50% chance it's full and they dump the packet at some service center miles away where you stand in line for half an hour and get your package late.
Been using Packstation for 10 years or so. What an improvement in quality of life. Even more than receiving packages the part of sending packages has profited even more. And if a package does get rerouted to another station I just remind myself of how much I rather drive 5 additional minutes with my car, than to wait 30 min in line at the postoffice (which has to happen during working hours anyways). Yikes.
Well, that's what happens to me 6/10 times. I have six Packstations within five driving minutes around me, yet as soon as the one I've addressed my package to was full on delivery, DHL insists on returning it to a parcel hub in an industrial area way out in the wilderness. Which closes 18:00 on weekdays, and on 13:00 on Saturdays.
And don't get me started on their new "Wunschpaket" service for redirecting deliveries in transit...
I had something like this at an apartment I lived in, it was called 'package concierge.'
It was mostly nice, but where I lived there were issues with execution of the idea. At peak times (holidays) the package robot would get full, because people wouldn't pick up their stuff in a timely manner.
The package robot also had to be loaded by an employee of the building... until then the package hung out in the mail room like normal, but you could only get your package from the package robot... so if the package showed up and no one was around to load the robot, or was slacking off on loading the robot, it actually took longer to get your stuff.
When it worked, however, it was good to be able to pick up your package when you got home from work at midnight without having to talk to anyone or sign anything. Also getting notified via email that you had something waiting was nice.
This allows oversubscription. With keys everyone needs their own box large enough to hold any parcel they might receive (recall that Amazon sells bass guitars and jumbo packs of toilet paper)
There's no reason it has to be only accessible to USPS.
And what's wrong with just using the standard, taxpayer-funded postal service for everything? It's a useful service where it makes absolutely no sense to duplicate effort and waste everyone's time, money and patience with competition on a pretty simple service.
Every other sane country just has a single, taxpayer-owned postal service..
I understand they can't use the same boxes. I just meant that Amazon's system with a built in computer terminal seems excessively complicated, expensive, and error prone.
established 2006, helped bring down the cost of deliveries at the same time improved convenience of online shopping when DHL,etc. always wanted to come to your flat when you were at work
These are pretty great. One of the big surprises of moving to Finland was that the postal service will __never__ deliver a parcel to your door.
Cards, very small packets, and letters all get delivered Monday-Friday, but parcels? They leave a card and you have to take it to your local post-office to collect your item.
I'd visited Finland a lot prior to moving, but of course this is the kind of thing you don't realize until you've relocated "for real". In the past I used to do a lot of online ordering, but since moving I've cut down a lot just because collection of things is a real pain. (Of course it helps that there is no Amazon.fi, instead the choices seem to be Amazon.co.uk / Amazon.de.)
It does happen at times, but it's very arbitrary if and when it happens.
I like SmartPosti parcel boxes as well, especially how I can select the delivery target that most suits my route and schedule. I usually use one that's close to my work in a mall so I can do some groceries while getting my packages.
Yeah I tend to order ESP8266 devices and random sensors, from AliExpress. Although the postage often takes 3-8 weeks its a little hit and miss whether the packets are delivered or have to be collected.
Mostly these days I tend to use verkkokauppa and similar "local" shops that can be collected from.
Yeah, regular parcels are not delivered to door, and most people don't want to pay the extra for door delivery. And nowadays many just redirect their parcels to a parcel box on their commute / supermarket via the Posti app/site.
Amazon.co.uk and amazon.de that you mentioned (and some other foreign sites), though, always seem to use to-door services even in Finland. The most common one has been DHL Weltpaket Premium which Posti tries to deliver once by 14:00 (sig.req), after that it goes to post office for pickup. Of course I'm never home at that time.
Amazon.fi redirects to amazon.de nowadays, BTW, which has free shipping to Finland for 39€+ orders.
I absolutely love them. They solve the problem of coordinating delivery times by... just letting me choose the pickup point that's active 24/7, so I can visit it e.g. at 9 PM while coming home from work. I always use them if I can (so sad I can't with Aliexpress :().
They try to deliver to home, but if there is noone there, they leave a note, and I have 14 days to receive items on nearest post office (same walk distance as Paczkomat, open 8am-8pm + Saturday). Plenty of time for me (or roommate!) to get all packages that arrived to house. Just one person in household can go every 2 weeks and collect dozen packages and letters.
In Paczkomat, item is returned to sender after 48 hours. With such short time and need for SMS code, no chance that roommate will collect packages for me.
The only advantage of Paczkomat is that you can use it at night.
Except a US PO Box wouldn't accept other carriers' packages.
That changed a few years ago when the USPS started offering "Street Addressing" for PO Boxes that could accept other couriers' deliveries. But it had some really strange rules around the addressing. You're supposed to use the street address of the post office and your box number, but you're not allowed to use "Box" or "Suite".
They could OCR all the return addresses and figure out who's buying what and target ads accordingly. They could also x-ray all the packages for even more insight into consumer behavior. And if a package is coming from a competitor, offer the recipient the option to receive an Amazon gift card in exchange for refusing delivery and returning to sender. Or just paste Amazon ads all over every package in the Hub. Yes I work in marketing why do you ask.
Oh wow, I guess the company at my old Apt complex got bought out. Those racks are the exact same.
Still, those were terrible ideas. FedEx, USPS, and UPS all just dropped the boxes off on our door. The others made us use those machines. It wasn't too bad to go down and get the packages. Oh wait, then you forgot your phone and had to go all the way back up to get it to get the unlock codes off of your email. Then you had to be certain that your email would not send the code email into spam, so that sucked.
But if you were out of town or on vacation or just stressed from work or had a spam email mis-identification then it was a spawn worse than Satan. The system started to charge you, like 5$/day or something, for non-picked-up packages after like day 3. Guess who got a nasty surcharge after spending a month away for work and no email to tell me that things would get surcharged? Yeah, 150$ for some random thing my sister sent me unannounced was not a lot of fun.
And no, the apt complex signed onto this AFTER we moved in and with no notice on the lease or an update to us. I did get the complex to pay that crazy fee after storming in one morning and yelling a lot. Idiots.
As long as there is no charge for packages that don't get picked up and no 'max time' it can sit in a robo-bin, these things work great. If there is any charge at all, in any way whatsoever, avoid them like the plague, they are horrible.
Even just to go to your mailbox? I routinely walk in the door from work, change into some more comfortable clothes (which may or may not have pockets), and then grab keys to go get my mail. I'd say I don't have my phone most of the time I do that.
My issue was that other companies provided better service for the same price throughout this time. Why make it harder when it worked well already? To me, it felt like yet another middleman trying to grab cash from me when I messed up in their tiny little empire that I never signed up for and did not agree to. So yeah, I would rate it a 1/5 stars.
Jesus man, I'm in my early 20's and even I don't make sure to put my phone in my pocket just to go pick up the mail. What could possibly be so important that it couldn't wait a whole 120 seconds?
I do that with my wallet and keys. I rarely take my phone out of the house though, and even leave it switched off for days or weeks at a time. I'm not sure what I'm missing out on by not having it available 24/7.
It's a very liberating feeling once you have 'trained' your friends and family that you are not dead nor hate them if a text goes unanswered for a few hours.
That is orthogonal to having a smart phone on you 24/7. I trained my friends and family not to expect instant replies (or me always picking up phone calls), but I use the phone also to read stuff, search for stuff, and note down stuff, so I do want it on me all the time.
I'm usually in the same place, and using my Linux desktop. I guess that's why I've always found it hard to get interested in phones: annoying devices with too-small screens, slow data entry and usually a locked-down OS with no updates.
Nothing - but the same habit also compels me to carry my wallet & keys everywhere I go as well. It costs me nothing to carry it, and there are times where I've returned to my apartment after stepping out for a minute to find myself locked out.
My door locks automatically when its closed - so when if I were to forget my keys, I would get locked out (which has happened, which is why I always carry my keys).
I forget my phone all the time, heck, I forget my keys to my car all the time. My issue was that other companies already left things at the door, yet more steps (literally) were unnecessary and seemed like a middleman forced themselves into my life to make it less good.
For me, yes. I've been the on-call dev for several years. Last month I dared to go hiking out of cell range only to get hit with downtime (due to hosting provider failover failure). I learned my lesson :(.
I installed the PagerDuty app on my phone which uses a body proximity sensor to automatically alert me any time I walk away from the phone even for a minute. /s
Yeah, that happens a lot to me. They installed those like scanner card-fob thingys at the last apt. and I lost that all the time too. Fortunately, it is just a magnetic sensor, so any neodymium magnet unlocked all the stuff. Granted, it was a full plate glass door for the front of the building too.
How come you don't forget the keys then? This phone thing is such a non-issue. You could even memorize the code when you get the mail and won't need the phone at all after that.
I forget my keys all the time. Also, the code was like 10 digits and letters or something. If I forget my keys all the time, I'd forget the code thingy too, no question.
I am sure OP is not addicted to his/her phone. There are lot of us who keep the phone in their pockets just fine when talking to people or keep it in the bag when going to the gym.
I bring it with me to work and hiking, but usually leave it charging or in my work-pants when I get home and am with family for the rest of the day. On weekends, I think I check it maybe twice. Like, the phone is something I use to call people I want to call/txt. It's not something that others use to reach me. Yeah, it sounds like a jerk thing, but my life is pretty 'face-to-face' and not digital to begin with. As far as I know, people who want to talk to me don't have an issue with it.
It's the same locker Amazon already has in many supermarkets. I use those a lot; much more convenient than worrying about a package being left on my door, or dropped blindly inside my patio ruining a plant.
What you mean is that this isn't opt-in? All your packets potentially go there without you explicitly asking for it?
Yeah, I think DHL and some others just auto-dropped them in there without us wanting them to do so. It wasn't our choice. UPS and others continued to drop stuff off at our door during this time frame.
It serves a real beneficial purpose for those of us who have missed packages while at work and had to drive 20min in terrible traffic to the nearest FedEx/UPS/etc retail outlet - at 6pm when everyone else got off work with the same idea. Then wait 20min in line for the pleasure of dealing with an annoyed retail lady who is short with you.
I'd much prefer having a machine on my property as a backup if I'm not home!
Your inconvenience of forgetting your wallet seems minor by comparison when you can just go upstairs, imagine forgetting it after driving and waiting in line... that really is the only alternative isn't it besides the old school "dumb" parcel boxes?
Your inconvenience of not knowing it was there and getting charged was the fault of your landlord, who rightfully paid the fee for you. It wasn't the fault of the box design per-se - but obviously something to be aware of.*
Your inconvenience of spam filtering is probably less likely with an amazon based email system.
I'm happy to see these becoming a widespread thing and being pushed to residential property owners. It even seems superior to the typical package boxes in most new apartment buildings or suburbs as it comes with email/mobile notifications (typical package tracking is far too often less than accurate)!
The only thing better than a machine here is a human concierge who signs for them and calls you if you don't pick it up with your mail. They're paid to be nice to you and are rarely busy.
* Maybe Amazon should make sure to tell new owners to thoroughly notify every tenant before using it - with signs saying it will be installed in x weeks and letters left on your door.
I'm living in Greece right now and I've been shopping online a bit more the past couple of months. I've been shopping online since 2006 and I guess at some point I forgot to notice how shit of an experience it is.
So in the past couple of months, I have RMA'd two items, returned one due to bad fulfillment, returned one more because I didn't like what I bought (and that got lost). Of all the items I ordered, one got lost or stolen, two more I had to pick up at the local PO which cost me a total of ~20USD in taxi fares (and several hours wasted waiting in line), one I had to pick up in the central depot which cost me 50USD in taxi fares just for that day (and again, several hours wasted).
Only one of those packages had free delivery because they all have to hop between the US, China, Denmark, Germany and who knows where else. (The only one I got free delivery on was a CODE keyboard, which costs $250 in Europe, vs. $130 in USA). So I'm actually paying for this ostensibly terrible service.
So I'm looking at the hub and I just think "Wow, that solves a lot of problems outside the US".
There are already competitors operating here in Canada doing this stuff fortunately. I believe Amazon acquired one of them which turned into this [nm, see edit]. That should hopefully pressure Amazon to expand and this will offer tons of free advertising for those smaller companies competing.
InPost is another one with boxes all over Europe. They recently shut down in my city though :/ (Toronto). But otherwise it looks pretty like they have extensive deployment: https://inpost24.com/
IDK, the vast majority of my international purchases have been delivered by AusPost - it's actually domestic PC parts shops and eBay sellers that I have the most problems with as a lot of them choose to use companies like Fastway and don't make it clear on their websites who they ship with.
I dont think so, I've had everything delivered there and never had an issue. My only exception is if its something where they say no po box - then I havent tried.
It's the same situation here in Lithuania - various companies have these lockers but it's hit or miss who an international package will be delivered by. Even from Amazon I've had packages delivered by DHL, UPS and regular mail.
The post office will give you a forwarding address (for regular mail) that will end up in the locker of your choosing, but you then have to pay €x/package, and the lockers are usually at post offices, so it's not really worth it.
The Packstation of DHL is great. What also DP/DHL did, is to make every little shop a micro-postoffice. Probably gave them some incentives, but it works great if you are not at home, you can be sure your package is at the store max 5 mins from you
The public post office in Cyprus [0] has 3 of those machines (1 for each big city).
SMSes get sent to you as notification, and you have 3-4 days to pick it up. After that (and a second notification), it gets sent to your local post office and a delivery note is sent to your house.
No charges yet for the service, though they have been toying with the idea ever since it launched a few years ago. No charges for packages not getting delivered either.
InPost is essentially useless in the UK, mind... there's essentially no retailers that support it, you can't have arbitrary packages from retailers posted to one, and I've literally never seen someone using my local InPost box to send packages. I'm assuming they're burning through investment money badly. To show how little people care about it: it doesn't even have an English-language wikipedia page.
If they could somehow have the postal service and couriers able to post things to InPost boxes, it'd be far more useful - but I suspect there's some really complicated contractual stuff that prevents that.
Your parcel get just delivered to your local NewsAgent, which in the UK generally has extensive opening times. Supported directly by Amazon and a bunch of retailer, but delivery companies use the same system (DPD, EPS).
Canada Post provides this service. My building has a parcel rack and they just put a numbered key in your mailbox when you have a parcel. No need for codes or phones.
For those who may not know, Canada's national postal service is the largest parcel carrier in Canada.
In Singapore the national postal service provides this service when you can ask the parcels to be delivered to automated box and you can collect later don't know if it works with fedex or other postal service who have their own delivery guys
I literally just came back from grabbing a package at an Amazon locker in Italy (this exact concept, except it's been around for a couple of months now). It was convenient and beats the really unreliable parcel services here.
I think that in densely built European cities robo delivery is a much more promising technology. The first trials are already ongoing here [0]. Putting in the hubs may not make sense if the target audience doesn't want delivery vans in a few years time.
>It serves a real beneficial purpose for those of us who have missed packages while at work and had to drive 20min in terrible traffic to the nearest FedEx/UPS/etc retail outlet
There is a low-tech solution for this already..you have normal package lockers near the mailroom which have keys. Your package is put in a locker, and the corresponding key is put into your mailbox.
Seems way easier and the only way this is better is if the touchscreen system works for signature required packages, allowing them to be dropped off without you
Back when I lived in Seattle, I had Amazon packages delivered to an Amazon Locker precisely because issues like this. Even when I am at home, it is difficult for the delivery person to ring up at the doorbell.
In Australia, Amazon outsourced the lockers to "ParcelPoint", which I believe is a Toll company. The issue is they haven't updated their locker addresses here for years, and I found out the hard way that at least two addresses near me had stopped accepting Amazon packages.
I addressed the "dumb" boxes in my original comment. But another point is that these hubs can be "appended" to buildings without these parcel rooms/infrastructure that are offered by those larger apartment buildings.
There are plenty of other properties that could utilize this too such as multi-tenant office buildings and plenty of other non-apartment building use cases.
It also productizes these boxes so they can buy one of these instead of setting of a mail center and doing the subsequent maintenance (ie: cutting keys, replacing lost ones, etc). And it notifies the people by email/mobile which makes it a nice value add-on for property owners to sell with the property.
Why can't a 'dumb' hub be appended as well? I have them at my new apt complex now, not the 'smart' ones, and they seem to work alright. It's right next to the mailboxes for the complex. Again, it's only USPS that uses the 'dumb' hub, all the other companies just drop things off at the door. It's not a big deal, at least for the area I live in.
At my complex of 65 units, there are a total of 12 package lockers all smaller than 12"x12".
OnTrac has taken over most Amazon deliveries at this apartment. They don't know the door code to get in (ups/FedEx/usps do). So, they leave packages by the exterior door. Usually the wrong one.
> There is a low-tech solution for this already..you have normal package lockers near the mailroom which have keys. Your package is put in a locker, and the corresponding key is put into your mailbox.
How would that work with multiple delivery services? A FedEx or UPS worker, for instance, cannot legally put a package locker key into a USPS mailbox (and usually, in apartment mailbox banks, cannot even physically do so even if they are willing to ignore the law).
The USPS already partners with all the big carriers for Amazon deliveries, so they could solve the problem.
Alternatively: put in boxes not owned by the usps, and use combination locks. The "special delivery instructions" box on every order form on earth already supports this.
The main problems with outdoor lock boxes are moisture and heat. The main problem with indoor ones is that you need a mail room, and they tend to be shared.
I don't see how this new product helps in most circumstances. I guess it could be useful in high crime urban settings, but mail lock boxes are already common there.
Japan is low-tech. The lockers are near the mailboxes.
Mailman puts the package in the mailbox which has a keypad and low-tech 1980's calculator style 1 line display.
He put package in locker. It generates and displays a pin-code, he write it down on a slip of paper with the locker number and puts it in your mailbox.
Works very well.
(I think he has to swipe a card to allow him to lock the thing in the first place. To stop random people using it).
Swipe a card? At least in my building there's no need. It's hard to imagine random people messing with it.
The low-tech thing has its downsides: the other day the delivery guy wrote down the wrong code so I had to wait for the building manager to open it.
That said, I agree that it works very well. And I think it's a somewhat recent innovation. Apart from my current apartment none of the places I've lived here (10+ years) had lockers.
I have lockers next to the mailbox and I'm in the US. They just put a key to the locker in your box and then you go unlock the locker and the key is 'caught' and won't re-close. Yeah, it's not a perfect system, but it doesn't go out when the power goes down and it isn't going to get taken over by Bratslavian hackers to try to sell my neighbors Viagra via Twitter and even the most tech-illiterate/disabled people can use it fine.
My large megacorp has an explicit policy forbidding employees from using work addresses for personal parcels - allegedly, they're concerned that shipments from overseas could lead to customs import paperwork being sent to them and being accidentally paid by the company, and, well, something something something security.
In my company, it's because half of those packages end up delivered to the warehouse behind the office building, and apparently the warehouse workers didn't like the additional workload.
Yeah, if you have to go pick up stuff, this kinda thing could help. I've never had to do that though, are you US based? My issue was that many other companies just left it on our doorstop, but DHL and a few others I'm forgetting insisted on using the machines when we were there. It was weird.
Again, I think they are nice enough most of the time, but the 'edge' cases make them a no-go for me.
My complex has one of those Luxer One systems, not the lockered ones, just a package room with a Luxer One branded iPad that controlled the lock and a camera in the room. Same dumb charges, except packages literally sit in a room. I don't mind the service, but every time I get that heavily branded email that says "No need to rush home. Your package will be ready when you are!" I squirm a little - it's really over-branded like they don't want you to forget who they are
This is where it is really useful to know a neighbor or a concierge in the building. Then you can just forward them the package code and they can get it for you if your out.
It just seems like what we have to do in this new world :p. Hey, at least we now have an excuse to know our neighbors, or at least be nice to the concierge if your building has one.
> The system started to charge you, like 5$/day or something, for non-picked-up packages after like day 3. Guess who got a nasty surcharge after spending a month away for work and no email to tell me that things would get surcharged? Yeah, 150$ for some random thing my sister sent me unannounced was not a lot of fun.
Why is nobody talking about the most important point? THIS is the most important point. $5 a day is a LOT of money and I am outraged. Is everyone here financially independent or something? I have agonized over buying a used desktop/laptop computer for months and that purchase is well under $200.
None of the rest of the story matters. What matters at the end of the day is the money. Are you guys paying attention to where your money is going?
If I was in charge, changing the terms of rental like this would be a criminal offense and the management would be in prison for years.
Why is this thing electronic at all? Why isn't it just a purely mechanical system where when you get a package, they drop the key to the big package-sized lockbox in your little letter-sized mailbox?
This is what the USPS, Canada Post, and some other postal services do in community mailboxes. The only problem is when someone forgets to pickup a package as the box is rendered unusable until they do, which can be a challenge with only a few package boxes for every 5-10 mailboxes.
Would you please not rant like this here? You have a good point that $5 a day is a lot for many people, but venting bile is not a good way to make your points on Hacker News. You emit more pollution this way than information, and if we're to have a functioning community, not polluting the local ecosystem is each member's first responsibility.
Those honestly sound like small issues that can be worked out, especially with tighter integration with Amazon. The solution doesn't necessarily have to be "let me leave packages in there forever". If there's good customer communication and support in the Amazon app, it could be a real nice solution to a major problem with urban deliveries.
Amazon has an app? I'm not urban, so maybe it works better for urban people than for people like me. My issue was that other companies continued to provide a better service for the same price with less hassle. To me, it felt like an unnecessary middleman that was just trying to gank me when I messed up even a little bit.
Consumers would prefer to get packages delivered to their doorsteps but the coordination of package delivery and consumer availability isn't always feasible. This is the solution to that problem and nothing more. And one of many available options (others being scheduled delivery, dropping off at the neighbours, leaving it at the doorstep, reattempting the delivery, pick up from the local depot, etc).
Since this is a multi-access digital mailbox this can handle more complex workflows a typical mailbox cannot. For example the code can be changed remotely so your access can be revoked (for cancelled orders maybe) or the delivery person re-open the box to pick up a package you dropped off in there for return.
This also opens up potential for further innovations here like RFID or bar-code scanners inside the hubs to mitigate wrong deliveries.
> Yeah, 150$ for some random thing my sister sent me unannounced was not a lot of fun.
That's unfortunate and maybe they ought to allow you to monitor and avoid charges using your app. However, whenever you have a shared and limited resources, charging for overages is not only inevitable but necessary. Otherwise someone who has a holiday home in London can order packages all year around and block the hub until his next visit.
Where Amazon seems to be going with this is improving the state of last mile mail logistics. The logistics are also sensible. Typically it will take a van at least an hour to cover a dozen drops at 5 minutes per drop. This is a real cost -- a cost that the consumer eventually bears. With a sharper focus on the hub model, a delivery van now needs to make a single drop for dozens of packages. These cost savings can be passed on to the consumer.
If a damn Roomba is now mapping my floor plan and what I have in my house and then selling that data to god-knows-who, why in the hell would I trust an app on my phone?
My issue was that many of the other companies were doing the 'normal' thing even through the time I was at the place that had the robo-lockers. Like, why make me take the extra steps (literally) to endure yet another middle-man that is just trying to gank me when I screw up? It made no sense and I didn't sign up for it at all, nor did they tell me about any apps or web-sites, just some random email stuff that got sorted into spam a lot.
Also, I don't really think ol' Jeff is gonna pass those savings on to us. Why would he? Dude is now crazy rich, and he did not get that way by passing savings on to customers. He got that way by providing a competing service for maybe 1 penny less than the other guy even though he could have done it for a dollar less. And yes, that is a heck of a debate to get mucked into, but suffice to say, Jeff is not trying to do us favors, he's trying to stay filthy rich.
Stop making excuses. I wonder how such a terrible comment made its way to the top.
> Oh wait, then you forgot your phone and had to go all the way back up to get it to get the unlock codes off of your email. Then you had to be certain that your email would not send the code email into spam, so that sucked.
Those are just one time things. You will forget first or second time but third time your brain will ring a bell "get your phone". Adding that email into trusted contacts is also a one time thing.
My building also has this setup but from different company. First three days are free. There is a website to manager locker settings. You can specify your away days then your packages will be dropped at leasing office.
This idea was also pitched at SharkTank and got funding.
So, yeah, I was just complaining about some of the issues that this thing has as compared to just dropping packages off at the door like a lot of other companies did already and continued to do after these lockers were installed. It's more steps (literally) than before and doesn't make a lot of sense. Like, to me, it felt like yet another unnecessary middle-man just waiting for you to screw up so they could take your money.
Really don't appreciate trash like 'how such a terrible comment made its way to the top'. I actually think this comment reads like a paid account. This kind of attitude is more fitting for 4chan or reddit on a bad day. the 'terrible comment made its way to the top' because people identified with it. Obviously.
True, I get that. But other companies were already, and continued to, just drop packages off at the door. Like I said in another reply, it felt like another unnecessary middleman waiting for me to screw up and then gank me. They succeeded, and now I really dislike these things, especially when (for me at least) the 'normal' method was better.
I moved out of my previous apartment partially because they switched to something like this... in our case they actually put the locker outside the building/locks - far more annoying than when the building let services leave the package in front of our apartment doors. I'm pretty sure these cost money too.
I guess my brain works differently than your's does; I'd forget my head if it wasn't attached.
I have no idea what a trusted contact is in email.
Also, our rentors never told us about this nonsense, they just appeared. So, trying to think up, de-novo, that these would have some website attached to them was too far-fetched for me, let alone many of my former neighbors.
My issue what that other companies continued to provide better service for the same price at that time with less hassle. To me, this felt like yet another middleman inserting themselves into the process and just trying to extort money from me when I didn't follow their rules. Plus, I never signed up for this, they just appeared and I was given no notice that 'my stuff' was going to be held hostage, no instructions, no links to websites or apps or whatever. So yeah, I was a bit cranky, my bad.
Just get the Amazon implant to authentify yourself (coming soon)... or just scream something next to the hub and the echo located in your bedroom will give you access using your voice's unique signature.
I have one of these in my building and it sucks. USPS never uses it, because they have actual mailboxes. Fedex and UPS use it half the time. They sometimes just leave your package lying out in the open. The apartment staff will move any unattended packages into a locked room, which defeats the purpose of the system. Sometimes you get unannounced packages and there's a fee after 2 days of storage. But the worst part is that you are forced to pay $20 to sign up for this service.
I think it was a 10 digit number and letter code which I could never remember and would have to then write down. Granted, this is not Amazon, it was some other company.
And yeah, I forget my phone all the time. To me, the phone is something I use, not something that I need or that others need me to have. On the weekends, I maybe check it twice if I'm not hiking or something, it just sits there charging otherwise.
My issue was that this new 'service' I did not sign up for was worse than before and than what many other companies were providing. To me, it was yet another unnecessary middle-man trying to gouge me for no reason. It was more steps (literally) for worse service. Why would I want that?
I'm hopeful this will improve deliverability - amazon sellers have noticed recently an increase in items returned because "shipping address undeliverable", and amazon forces us to eat the shipping cost - often on items delivered by Amazon themselves (amazon logistics).
Of course, they're pushing the costs down to crappy vendors and contract people or stuffing packages for USPS to deliver using a loophole where USPS loses $2/box.
The post office is hiring people at $11/hr and working them 60 hours a week until they flame out.
I've seen the op eds claiming a loophole, written by a large FedEx investor. I also read the response and I wasn't convinced that the USPS is losing money.
I wish my office's building was able to support one of these. Our neighborhood USPS will often swing by after the office doors lock. They will say things like "unable to deliver" but never deliver during office hours. When you buy from Amazon, you never know if UPS (never a problem) or USPS is going to be the deliverer. It makes Prime shipping nearly worthless for many of us.
But we don't own this building, and at least right now I can't imagine where one of these things might go.
This morning, an Amazon deliveryman walked a few steps toward my house, threw a package about fifteen feet to the door (denting the case inside), and then walked back to his van. I still can't find a specific way to complain about the delivery. Forgive me if I'm not excited about Amazon building their own private mailboxes, but I don't think they have any real understanding of their own shortcomings.
If it's so hard to find I can't imagine they'd care what you have to say. Besides, it's not my packages I see thrown 10 feet across someone's yard. It's my neighbors that I don't know and wouldn't recognize if I saw them. For all I know it's not even Amazon handling the deliveries since they come in an unmarked white van.
Then it's not your concern if you don't feel you should tell your neighbors. I was replying to someone who said they saw something happen with their own package and I can assure you from extensive experience that Amazon goes out of their way to try to make it right with the customer (even if they don't address the root problem, they still do something to make it right to a complaining customer).
That, and the very common in my part of the world case, in which you learn that package wasn't delivered because no one was in the apartment, even though you (or your spouse) spent the entire day in the apartment...
Some carriers are better about this than others though. USPS/UPS/Fedex/DHL aren't perfect, but generally do an acceptable job. When I was living in Seattle it got to the point I would dread the OnTrac deliveries Amazon sent out because of all the issues I had with their drivers.
Call Amazon customer support (ask Google for the 800 number) and ask them to deprioritize Amazon Fulfillment. That weights it to the bottom of their selection algorithm, so it's only chosen if no other shipper can fulfill - which mostly relegates them to same-day fulfillment, and not always then.
Worked for me after a string of delivery errors; I haven't had a problem since.
I've had an Amazon deliveryman upbraid me for the fact that he had trouble finding my apartment. I've had a different one (or maybe the same one; how would I know?) deliver my stuff to the wrong address.
Obviously, I contacted them to complain about that second one; I'm pretty sure they're aware that it's a problem. Knowing you have a problem doesn't mean you can quickly fix it.
It might look like private mailboxes, though they are extensions of Amazon Locker. Those racks looks like the ones I used back when I lived in Seattle, with a different paint and without the Amazon logos.
From what I understand, the Amazon delivery man is a contractor. They get pressured by Amazon's dispatchers into cranking out deliveries. I wonder if you could report this as goods that are damaged -- they likely have metrics that will count against that specific delivery contractor.
Reading reviews of it on Glassdoor makes it sound horrid. Part time contractors who have to work in "blocks" and who seem to have it mostly automated/appified with little human guidance. No wonder in the end they don't care.
Wildly unnecessary. Apartment complexes have mailbox systems where they leave a one-time key in your mailbox to a special package-sized box. No touchscreen or Amazon needed.
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[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 273 ms ] threadIf you fill out the form it asks what kind of property you have, and single family homes is an option, but then it says "your property does not meet our requirements at this time." I wonder if enough people select that though...
https://www.amazon.com/b/ref=amb_link_366591722_2?_encoding=...
This seems more targeted at apartment/condo buildings that have been wrestling with the mountain of Prime packages that show up daily and are either stolen or managed by a building superintendent that doesn't want to deal with them anymore.
1. lockboxes or cut-resistant package containers which are clamped to your apartment door and can be opened with a PIN, such as these https://www.paketbutler.com/ or these https://www.paksafe.de/
2. the DB train network is installing delivery boxes on train stations and subway stations, including refrigerated ones for food deliveries, allowing for pickup on your commute home
3. Smart cars (those tiny city hoppers most Americans seem to hate) can be outfitted with a small module that allows delivery services to access the trunk, turning them into mobile delivery boxes
There does not seem anyone on the market now can be a meaningful competitor at all. The close-loop virtuous cycle now extends to a degree that probably only Alibaba can rival (in China).
I don't think this is Bezos' original vision, but Amazon grows to a point such ideas just come out naturally.
The resistance seems futile now, all retailers should consider how to operate in the model created by Amazon.
In many ways, Walmart is in a much stronger competitive position than Amazon, as they have "warehouses"/physical retail outlets within a reasonable driving distance of most Americans, and they're equipped to handle products that are not really feasible for someone like Amazon, who is still almost completely dependent on parcel carriers for access to the customer. Walmart does not have such external dependencies and Amazon is really only needed when the product is so obscure that Walmart wouldn't carry it.
Walmart has next-day grocery pickup, electronic receipts and payment via Walmart Pay, and several other high-tech features available. They've been acquiring e-commerce upstarts like Jet and Bonobos. A crew of Walmart delivery drivers that covered a 5 mile radius from each store is Amazon's nightmare.
I don't think it's wise to count Walmart out. The biggest challenge for them is internal, and whether forward-looking ecommerce advocates can win out against the visionless MBA types in resource competition.
So let's compare an order made with Amazon and one made at Walmart. The Amazon order is made with pickers standing at a station while robotic carts move stock around them. The Walmart order is made by a worker that walks the retail store gathering items off the shelves alongside customers.
I'm guessing Amazon still has an upper hand at this point.
Unfortunately USPS are Luddites.
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2014/04/29/How-US-Pos...
Am I missing something about Outbox? Why wouldn't they just give the people using this service a P.O box corporate office to use as their 'address' when getting something delivered?
I've always wondered why private mailbox numbers even need to exist. The numbers could be virtual and all of the packages could be in one place to be retrieved by workers on demand. Perhaps there's some sort of clause USPS has to defeat an idea like that or an arbitrarily low limit for how many #s can be at a physical location etc.
Amazon is nice, but a bit tired of Amazon's attempt to collect everyone's data about everything.
I really have no issue with Amazon overall. I am just tired of these blatant products to invade privacy (The Echo with the camera and this, and probably a few others I am forgetting)
Amazon is the easiest to avoid unlike other online services.
Coming soon, from the same company that brought you the ability to buy unlimited storage[1]!
[1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14511935
One problem of Amazon Hub v/s LuxerOne is that I don't think Amazon Hub will work with packages from other retailers.
But anyway the video says "any retailer", so that's not the case.
The video says "any sender" so it could be a private party sending you something as well.
Amusingly, LuxerOne, Parcel Pending and this Amazon thing all seem to be using the same device, so this is either very convergent evolution or there's just one Chinese whitebox manufacturer for these lockers and everyone just slaps their logo on them.
Perhaps these guys:
http://www.winnsen.com/
http://www.keba.com/en/logistics-solutions/logistics-solutio...
Not a huge deal, I guess.
Am I wrong or does their main headline have some serious singular/plural issues?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BufferBox
>There are 3,000 Packstation machines in Germany[1] and 90 percent of the people living in Germany were within ten minutes of a DHL Packstation.[2]
There are also Paketboxen, which are smaller installations for residential areas. The whole system works pretty well for me. The one big downside is, that it only works with DHL/Deutsche Post parcel. They are the dominant player here, but sometimes delivery by them is not available.
The DHL member card allowed me to send packages to the nearest post office or a Packstation. I just used the former. The cunt actually tried to tell me it was for German citizens only, I told him to give me the fucking package (containing the membership card) and get lost. Turkish piece of shit.
And you wonder why he doesn't want to deliver your packages...
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
http://www.dpdhl.com/de/presse/mediathek/fotos/dhl_packstati...
They are nice, but it's a bit of a trade-off: 50% chance there is an empty opening in the station, 50% chance it's full and they dump the packet at some service center miles away where you stand in line for half an hour and get your package late.
And don't get me started on their new "Wunschpaket" service for redirecting deliveries in transit...
It was mostly nice, but where I lived there were issues with execution of the idea. At peak times (holidays) the package robot would get full, because people wouldn't pick up their stuff in a timely manner.
The package robot also had to be loaded by an employee of the building... until then the package hung out in the mail room like normal, but you could only get your package from the package robot... so if the package showed up and no one was around to load the robot, or was slacking off on loading the robot, it actually took longer to get your stuff.
When it worked, however, it was good to be able to pick up your package when you got home from work at midnight without having to talk to anyone or sign anything. Also getting notified via email that you had something waiting was nice.
I think that is what above comment is referring to. It is nice having a notification, so don't believe its over engineering.
And what's wrong with just using the standard, taxpayer-funded postal service for everything? It's a useful service where it makes absolutely no sense to duplicate effort and waste everyone's time, money and patience with competition on a pretty simple service.
Every other sane country just has a single, taxpayer-owned postal service..
https://about.usps.com/news/state-releases/tx/2010/tx_2010_0...
established 2006, helped bring down the cost of deliveries at the same time improved convenience of online shopping when DHL,etc. always wanted to come to your flat when you were at work
They've also recently started installing similar machines to apartment buildings (somewhat similar to OP Amazon things I guess).
Cards, very small packets, and letters all get delivered Monday-Friday, but parcels? They leave a card and you have to take it to your local post-office to collect your item.
I'd visited Finland a lot prior to moving, but of course this is the kind of thing you don't realize until you've relocated "for real". In the past I used to do a lot of online ordering, but since moving I've cut down a lot just because collection of things is a real pain. (Of course it helps that there is no Amazon.fi, instead the choices seem to be Amazon.co.uk / Amazon.de.)
I like SmartPosti parcel boxes as well, especially how I can select the delivery target that most suits my route and schedule. I usually use one that's close to my work in a mall so I can do some groceries while getting my packages.
Mostly these days I tend to use verkkokauppa and similar "local" shops that can be collected from.
Amazon.co.uk and amazon.de that you mentioned (and some other foreign sites), though, always seem to use to-door services even in Finland. The most common one has been DHL Weltpaket Premium which Posti tries to deliver once by 14:00 (sig.req), after that it goes to post office for pickup. Of course I'm never home at that time.
Amazon.fi redirects to amazon.de nowadays, BTW, which has free shipping to Finland for 39€+ orders.
They try to deliver to home, but if there is noone there, they leave a note, and I have 14 days to receive items on nearest post office (same walk distance as Paczkomat, open 8am-8pm + Saturday). Plenty of time for me (or roommate!) to get all packages that arrived to house. Just one person in household can go every 2 weeks and collect dozen packages and letters.
In Paczkomat, item is returned to sender after 48 hours. With such short time and need for SMS code, no chance that roommate will collect packages for me.
The only advantage of Paczkomat is that you can use it at night.
That changed a few years ago when the USPS started offering "Street Addressing" for PO Boxes that could accept other couriers' deliveries. But it had some really strange rules around the addressing. You're supposed to use the street address of the post office and your box number, but you're not allowed to use "Box" or "Suite".
I'm afraid to try it, personally...
https://postalpro.usps.com/node/2726
Still, those were terrible ideas. FedEx, USPS, and UPS all just dropped the boxes off on our door. The others made us use those machines. It wasn't too bad to go down and get the packages. Oh wait, then you forgot your phone and had to go all the way back up to get it to get the unlock codes off of your email. Then you had to be certain that your email would not send the code email into spam, so that sucked.
But if you were out of town or on vacation or just stressed from work or had a spam email mis-identification then it was a spawn worse than Satan. The system started to charge you, like 5$/day or something, for non-picked-up packages after like day 3. Guess who got a nasty surcharge after spending a month away for work and no email to tell me that things would get surcharged? Yeah, 150$ for some random thing my sister sent me unannounced was not a lot of fun.
And no, the apt complex signed onto this AFTER we moved in and with no notice on the lease or an update to us. I did get the complex to pay that crazy fee after storming in one morning and yelling a lot. Idiots.
As long as there is no charge for packages that don't get picked up and no 'max time' it can sit in a robo-bin, these things work great. If there is any charge at all, in any way whatsoever, avoid them like the plague, they are horrible.
I can hardly remember the last time I went somewhere without my phone.
http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2011-04-25
Like it takes two seconds in the app or you can block all notifications from that app by long pressing the notification.
Really not that hard to get rid of the spam.
Both myself and everyone I know have their phones on them 24/7, and next to their bed when they sleep.
But if my mailbox requires me to have my phone, I'd bring it along. I don't see the problem.
How come you don't forget the keys then? This phone thing is such a non-issue. You could even memorize the code when you get the mail and won't need the phone at all after that.
What you mean is that this isn't opt-in? All your packets potentially go there without you explicitly asking for it?
I'd much prefer having a machine on my property as a backup if I'm not home!
Your inconvenience of forgetting your wallet seems minor by comparison when you can just go upstairs, imagine forgetting it after driving and waiting in line... that really is the only alternative isn't it besides the old school "dumb" parcel boxes?
Your inconvenience of not knowing it was there and getting charged was the fault of your landlord, who rightfully paid the fee for you. It wasn't the fault of the box design per-se - but obviously something to be aware of.*
Your inconvenience of spam filtering is probably less likely with an amazon based email system.
I'm happy to see these becoming a widespread thing and being pushed to residential property owners. It even seems superior to the typical package boxes in most new apartment buildings or suburbs as it comes with email/mobile notifications (typical package tracking is far too often less than accurate)!
The only thing better than a machine here is a human concierge who signs for them and calls you if you don't pick it up with your mail. They're paid to be nice to you and are rarely busy.
* Maybe Amazon should make sure to tell new owners to thoroughly notify every tenant before using it - with signs saying it will be installed in x weeks and letters left on your door.
So in the past couple of months, I have RMA'd two items, returned one due to bad fulfillment, returned one more because I didn't like what I bought (and that got lost). Of all the items I ordered, one got lost or stolen, two more I had to pick up at the local PO which cost me a total of ~20USD in taxi fares (and several hours wasted waiting in line), one I had to pick up in the central depot which cost me 50USD in taxi fares just for that day (and again, several hours wasted).
Only one of those packages had free delivery because they all have to hop between the US, China, Denmark, Germany and who knows where else. (The only one I got free delivery on was a CODE keyboard, which costs $250 in Europe, vs. $130 in USA). So I'm actually paying for this ostensibly terrible service.
So I'm looking at the hub and I just think "Wow, that solves a lot of problems outside the US".
And it's US only.
Of course it is.
There are already competitors operating here in Canada doing this stuff fortunately. I believe Amazon acquired one of them which turned into this [nm, see edit]. That should hopefully pressure Amazon to expand and this will offer tons of free advertising for those smaller companies competing.
Edit: turns out it was Buffer Box and they were acquired by Google and (of course) shut down https://www.wikiwand.com/en/BufferBox
InPost is another one with boxes all over Europe. They recently shut down in my city though :/ (Toronto). But otherwise it looks pretty like they have extensive deployment: https://inpost24.com/
Germany has DHL Packstation: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Packstation
Also two startups: https://wefunder.com/swapbox and http://www.ucella.com/
Also, not in a ton of locations.
The post office will give you a forwarding address (for regular mail) that will end up in the locker of your choosing, but you then have to pay €x/package, and the lockers are usually at post offices, so it's not really worth it.
SMSes get sent to you as notification, and you have 3-4 days to pick it up. After that (and a second notification), it gets sent to your local post office and a delivery note is sent to your house.
No charges yet for the service, though they have been toying with the idea ever since it launched a few years ago. No charges for packages not getting delivered either.
[0] http://www.mcw.gov.cy/mcw/dps/dps.nsf/page25_en/page25_en?Op...
If they could somehow have the postal service and couriers able to post things to InPost boxes, it'd be far more useful - but I suspect there's some really complicated contractual stuff that prevents that.
Your parcel get just delivered to your local NewsAgent, which in the UK generally has extensive opening times. Supported directly by Amazon and a bunch of retailer, but delivery companies use the same system (DPD, EPS).
For those who may not know, Canada's national postal service is the largest parcel carrier in Canada.
[0]: https://www.amazon.es/locker
I think that in densely built European cities robo delivery is a much more promising technology. The first trials are already ongoing here [0]. Putting in the hubs may not make sense if the target audience doesn't want delivery vans in a few years time.
[0] https://www.starship.xyz
There is a low-tech solution for this already..you have normal package lockers near the mailroom which have keys. Your package is put in a locker, and the corresponding key is put into your mailbox.
Seems way easier and the only way this is better is if the touchscreen system works for signature required packages, allowing them to be dropped off without you
(I have been using the AusPost ones and I'm having more luck than I used to).
Seriously - if AusPost don't want to accept a delivery they won't even let you know, it's just returned to sender.
There are plenty of other properties that could utilize this too such as multi-tenant office buildings and plenty of other non-apartment building use cases.
It also productizes these boxes so they can buy one of these instead of setting of a mail center and doing the subsequent maintenance (ie: cutting keys, replacing lost ones, etc). And it notifies the people by email/mobile which makes it a nice value add-on for property owners to sell with the property.
OnTrac has taken over most Amazon deliveries at this apartment. They don't know the door code to get in (ups/FedEx/usps do). So, they leave packages by the exterior door. Usually the wrong one.
How would that work with multiple delivery services? A FedEx or UPS worker, for instance, cannot legally put a package locker key into a USPS mailbox (and usually, in apartment mailbox banks, cannot even physically do so even if they are willing to ignore the law).
Alternatively: put in boxes not owned by the usps, and use combination locks. The "special delivery instructions" box on every order form on earth already supports this.
The main problems with outdoor lock boxes are moisture and heat. The main problem with indoor ones is that you need a mail room, and they tend to be shared.
I don't see how this new product helps in most circumstances. I guess it could be useful in high crime urban settings, but mail lock boxes are already common there.
Mailman puts the package in the mailbox which has a keypad and low-tech 1980's calculator style 1 line display.
He put package in locker. It generates and displays a pin-code, he write it down on a slip of paper with the locker number and puts it in your mailbox.
Works very well.
(I think he has to swipe a card to allow him to lock the thing in the first place. To stop random people using it).
The low-tech thing has its downsides: the other day the delivery guy wrote down the wrong code so I had to wait for the building manager to open it.
That said, I agree that it works very well. And I think it's a somewhat recent innovation. Apart from my current apartment none of the places I've lived here (10+ years) had lockers.
Again, I think they are nice enough most of the time, but the 'edge' cases make them a no-go for me.
Why is nobody talking about the most important point? THIS is the most important point. $5 a day is a LOT of money and I am outraged. Is everyone here financially independent or something? I have agonized over buying a used desktop/laptop computer for months and that purchase is well under $200.
None of the rest of the story matters. What matters at the end of the day is the money. Are you guys paying attention to where your money is going?
If I was in charge, changing the terms of rental like this would be a criminal offense and the management would be in prison for years.
UPS and FedEx cannot legally open your mailbox, either, even if it doesn't have a lock.
Sounds like someone is desperate to feel oppressed. That's a Facebook group, check it out.
Since this is a multi-access digital mailbox this can handle more complex workflows a typical mailbox cannot. For example the code can be changed remotely so your access can be revoked (for cancelled orders maybe) or the delivery person re-open the box to pick up a package you dropped off in there for return.
This also opens up potential for further innovations here like RFID or bar-code scanners inside the hubs to mitigate wrong deliveries.
> Yeah, 150$ for some random thing my sister sent me unannounced was not a lot of fun.
That's unfortunate and maybe they ought to allow you to monitor and avoid charges using your app. However, whenever you have a shared and limited resources, charging for overages is not only inevitable but necessary. Otherwise someone who has a holiday home in London can order packages all year around and block the hub until his next visit.
Where Amazon seems to be going with this is improving the state of last mile mail logistics. The logistics are also sensible. Typically it will take a van at least an hour to cover a dozen drops at 5 minutes per drop. This is a real cost -- a cost that the consumer eventually bears. With a sharper focus on the hub model, a delivery van now needs to make a single drop for dozens of packages. These cost savings can be passed on to the consumer.
My issue was that many of the other companies were doing the 'normal' thing even through the time I was at the place that had the robo-lockers. Like, why make me take the extra steps (literally) to endure yet another middle-man that is just trying to gank me when I screw up? It made no sense and I didn't sign up for it at all, nor did they tell me about any apps or web-sites, just some random email stuff that got sorted into spam a lot.
Also, I don't really think ol' Jeff is gonna pass those savings on to us. Why would he? Dude is now crazy rich, and he did not get that way by passing savings on to customers. He got that way by providing a competing service for maybe 1 penny less than the other guy even though he could have done it for a dollar less. And yes, that is a heck of a debate to get mucked into, but suffice to say, Jeff is not trying to do us favors, he's trying to stay filthy rich.
> Oh wait, then you forgot your phone and had to go all the way back up to get it to get the unlock codes off of your email. Then you had to be certain that your email would not send the code email into spam, so that sucked.
Those are just one time things. You will forget first or second time but third time your brain will ring a bell "get your phone". Adding that email into trusted contacts is also a one time thing.
My building also has this setup but from different company. First three days are free. There is a website to manager locker settings. You can specify your away days then your packages will be dropped at leasing office.
This idea was also pitched at SharkTank and got funding.
Yeah, what a weird argument. Oh no, I have to grab my phone and can't just saunter downstairs in my unmentionables and nothing else.
Delivery lockers are a minor inconvenience, but it certainly was not a positive change... paper cuts add up.
I have no idea what a trusted contact is in email.
Also, our rentors never told us about this nonsense, they just appeared. So, trying to think up, de-novo, that these would have some website attached to them was too far-fetched for me, let alone many of my former neighbors.
You know SharkTank is highly staged and this is an Amazon thingy now, right?: https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilycanal/2016/10/21/about-72-...
Just get the Amazon implant to authentify yourself (coming soon)... or just scream something next to the hub and the echo located in your bedroom will give you access using your voice's unique signature.
Who forgets their phone these days? And even then, you can memorize the 4 digit code.
We have these things and they work great.
And yeah, I forget my phone all the time. To me, the phone is something I use, not something that I need or that others need me to have. On the weekends, I maybe check it twice if I'm not hiking or something, it just sits there charging otherwise.
Wow, the very definition of 1st world problems right there :D
The post office is hiring people at $11/hr and working them 60 hours a week until they flame out.
But we don't own this building, and at least right now I can't imagine where one of these things might go.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/contact-us/general-questions....
Worked for me after a string of delivery errors; I haven't had a problem since.
Obviously, I contacted them to complain about that second one; I'm pretty sure they're aware that it's a problem. Knowing you have a problem doesn't mean you can quickly fix it.
From what I understand, the Amazon delivery man is a contractor. They get pressured by Amazon's dispatchers into cranking out deliveries. I wonder if you could report this as goods that are damaged -- they likely have metrics that will count against that specific delivery contractor.
They've had this for a while and they're even building their own cargo airline.