![]() That means a consumer could place orders with three different brands and have them all delivered to the same locker during a reserved time slot.īut it’s not just the consumer who benefits. But at the same time, they would be available to multiple retailers. #PARCEL LOCKER MEANING INSTALL#Mirza believes parcel lockers will play out in a sort of hybrid model, in which retailers install lockers in neighborhoods for use by multiple carriers and customers. “They can be outside of that and be available for various retailers to leverage.” “There is a growing concept of saying that these lockers don’t have to be in the retailer’s premises,” Mirza observed. Essentially, these lockers are democratized, with multiple retailers or carriers given access. A few already do this, including Bell and Howell. As Mirza alluded to, last-mile lockers will also need to be retailer- or carrier-agnostic, meaning that locker manufacturers don’t have exclusive arrangements with any one company. “That brings in the complexity of multiple brands accessing the locker and the security that’s behind that.”īut it’s not enough for any consumer to have access. “The end consumer can have temporary ownership of a locker and then have different retailers actually use their locker as a drop-off point,” he explained. Mirza suggested that locker companies could use a reservation model, much like a restaurant. First, lockers need to become consumer-agnostic, accessible to any consumer in the area. ![]() Locker democracyĪ few things need to happen before that becomes reality. But Mirza sees lockers becoming the hub of the last mile, with consumers themselves replacing delivery vans as the spokes. “But what they’re doing now is almost hub to spoke to hub, right? And that second hub becomes the lockers.”Ĭurrently, hub-and-spoke is mainly used in the middle mile, where carriers distribute goods between central warehouses and fulfillment centers. And that point would be the launch pad for these last-mile providers to go to individual consumers,” he said. To paint a better picture, Mirza described parcel lockers as an extension of the common hub-and-spoke model: “Logistics companies have these spokes, and they would go from the warehouses - which were the hubs - to the spokes. Mirza estimated that adoption of parcel lockers is low - less than 5% - but he envisions them being used widely by retail brands. The pilot with Bell and Howell, though, is just the precursor to a much larger vision. Related: Read: Verizon introduces parcel lockers at 250 stores Read: Interest in parcel lockers grows for online shopping-addicted Americans Meanwhile, customers were able to pick up orders at their convenience without having to worry about porch pirates. With a single dedicated drop-off zone, delivery vans were able to save the time and money it would take to deliver to each individual building. At a central location in a senior living community, Delivery Solutions installed temperature-controlled lockers from Bell and Howell. Using lockers, the two companies worked with supermarket chain Lowes Foods to help deliver groceries to hard-to-reach customers. Mirza and Delivery Solutions have taken last-mile batching into their own hands through an innovative partnership with Bell and Howell, a tech-enabled parcel locker manufacturer. “And so it was clear to us that this philosophy of batching is going to start playing out in the last-mile space.” “When you’re trying to get your package to the end consumer, that is the point where you start to see couriers making wide-ranging stops just to distribute one or two packages,” Arshaad Mirza, co-founder of last-mile orchestration platform Delivery Solutions, explained to Modern Shipper. Typically, that bundling unravels once goods arrive at the last mile - but it doesn’t have to. Hub to spoke to hubĪlmost every part of the supply chain moves goods in bulk or batch orders. Last-mile parcel lockers are emerging as an answer for retailers who want to save time and money, both for themselves and their customers. One simple solution could turn that zero-sum game into a win-win. So, to cut last-mile costs further, chances are that they’re playing a zero-sum game by passing them along to consumers - and inadvertently hampering demand. Cost-saving measures like route optimization and transportation management systems are now commonplace among retailers and their carrier partners. Whatever you want to call it, the last mile is where the shipping experience is won or lost.īut retailers face a dilemma. ![]() Consider this: Last-mile costs account for over half (53%) of the total cost of shipping, which means the margin for error there is slimmer. In the big game of supply chain, the last mile is the fourth quarter. ![]()
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