Electronic Lockers – Amazon Hub, USPS & Smartecarte

Electronic Lockers Amazon & USPS Pickup

Electronic lockers are surging in popularity.  Apartment complexes and more. Amazon is across the 7-Eleven chain.  One of the new ideas are custom solar-powered pickup lockers for residential consumers. Porch pirates are just one factor.

We took a look at the space recently.  What drove us to do that was identifying out-of-compliance Braille stickers being used in California (see related post on Braille decals)

We have a photo gallery of lockers you can view.

If you are interested in lockers and customized lockers, email [email protected]

Background

It is no surprise that currently electronic lockers are made in China. In the case regarding Braille, rather than try and contact someone at Amazon or USPS, we instead went down the foodchain. There are US companies which sell and support those to Amazon, and in turn, they buy those lockers from China.

We contacted the origin Chinese point and they were nice enough to relay the information onto Amazon and USPS. They thanked us as did Amazon for bringing it to their attention.

One interesting note is that the main Amazon supplier no longer ships from China.  The political complications with the U.S. has changed that, and now shipping is from Vietnam.

Example Deployer smartecarte

• 3400 locations
• 53,000 worldwide
• Cashless program
• Season pass holders
• Purchase locker entitlement from POS to ticketing
• API communications
• Integrate into any park media (barcode, QR code, RFID) or standalone system
• Onsite, virtual machine, or remote-hosted secure server
• Real-time reporting for usage and revenue by hour
• Remote maintenance, management, and monitoring
• Continual software upgrades and development
• Locker hopping
• Link to smartecarte lockers

USPS Parcel Locker for Pickup

Consumers are now accustomed to the convenience of online shopping and ordering products anytime and anywhere. They have similar expectations in how they receive their packages to best  accommodate the varying needs of their lifestyle:

• Flexibility: Anytime, Anywhere
• Convenience: Don’t want to wait at home or in a line for pickup.
• Privacy: Don’t want to share personal information such as their home address.
• Security: Peace of mind that their package is safe and secure until they are ready for it.

The USPS Smart Lockers provide recipients of packages with a free, out-of-home alternative to receive
their high-value items in a safe, secure, and convenient way.

The Postal Service has designed a simple process that enables Shippers and Shipping Partners to present

USPS® Smart Lockers (Lockers) as an alternate delivery option for their package recipients. This process allows Shippers to retain complete control over the customer experience they provide, while adding value to their business. Benefits include:

• Alternative delivery options at checkout.
• Improved first-time delivery success rate.
• Solves for bad delivery/inaccessible addresses.
• Reduced returns/replacements (safe/secure delivery).
• Simplified package returns (offers a secure drop-off option).
• USPS Customer manual

Amazon Hub Lockers

Amazon has an extensive network of pickup locations called Amazon Hub Lockers. These secure, self-serve kiosks provide a convenient solution for customers to collect their Amazon packages. Here are some key facts about Amazon Lockers:

• Number of Locations: Amazon has over 41,000 locker locations across the United States, making it easy for customers to retrieve their orders
• Coverage: These lockers are present in 900+ cities throughout North America
• Recent Installations: In 2021 alone, Amazon added over 1,800 new locker locations
• Projected Growth: The company aims to expand its locker program and is projected to reach 60,000 locker sites by 2023
• These lockers come in different types, including those with touch screens and barcode scanners, as well as others that require the Amazon Shopping App and Bluetooth activation on your smartphone
• They offer various accessibility features, such as talking lockers, high-contrast touchscreen text, and customizable slot preferences

So, whether you’re near a Whole Foods, a 7-Eleven, or another popular location, chances are you’ll find an Amazon Locker nearby

Summary from Copilot

Example Provider Elo – Grocery Lockers

Here is the url for lockers and Elo.

Excerpt:

Customize Shopping Experiences with Click and Collect for Increased Customer Loyalty

Have you thought about integrating click and collect into your business but don’t know how to get started? Or maybe you have already integrated some of this retail technology and would like to take it to the next level in responding to customer demands? Either way, taking advantage of all that click and collect has to offer will elevate your omnichannel strategy to meet the latest customer expectations, which promises loyalty in return.

Click and collect has significant upside for retailers’ earning and keeping customers when deployed with customer convenience in mind, not to mention the added advantage of being able to strategically use upsells online and in store. Of online shoppers, 47 percent always or often end up buying more products when picking up their orders in-store, according to PYMNT’s 2022 Global Digital Shopping Playbook: U.S. Edition. And while click and collect gained some popularity initially during the pandemic, over 50 percent of online shoppers use click and collect today. Of them, 56 percent use click and collect frequently – 6+ times in the past year and 8.2% of consumers have used BOPIS 20 times or more in the past year, suggesting that it may have become their primary mode of shopping, according to Raydiant research.

 

What’s Up Next? Bonus RFID Self Checkout SCO machines

Automated retail is evolving both for customers and for employees.  Just last week Amazon decided to shut down its “Just Walk Out” concept stores. From dazzled to fizzled in four years. And they turned out NOT to be so non-reliant on humans…

Another growing area is RFID and self-checkout though.  We spoke with the folks at Fujitsu and they have several new models that resemble the “kitchensink” configuration. You put your items in a basket basically and let them be scanned.

Several customized versions of this are cropping up.  Initial origin is South Africa actually. Many companies involved in this sort of automated self-checkout via RFID

Here is google query for articles or images

https://www.google.com/search?q=uniqlo+self+checkout

FOR GOOD MEASURE

We reviewed serving robot.

“our robots is an open platform that customers can develop and integrated into his own system. Secondly, our robot comes with dynamic ads while working, and customer can easily upload and change ads via phone. Thirdly, we have a robot management app for end user and a remote maintenance and control platform for distributors help with the after sales support.”

For reference the MSRP is around $15K for Pro version. Approximately 700 deployed