Interesting piece in the Wall Street Journal this morning about how new homes, buildings and neighborhoods are integrating lockers and delivery rooms into their plans as a way of meeting the demands of e-commerce.
"Long before the days of online shopping carts, homeowners got deliveries primarily in their mailbox," the Journal writes. "Today, your junk mail arrives reliably and securely in the mailbox, while valuable (and perishable) packages are typically heaped on the doorstep. Our homes haven’t caught up with the Amazon Age."
While apartment buildings for a number of years have been expanding their mail rooms to have enough space for all the e-commerce deliveries they get, it has been a bigger problem for single family homes. There's always the option of having it delivered elsewhere - like the post office or FedEx Office - but that rarely is the most convenient option.
Which creates an opportunity…
"To eliminate the need to leave home to retrieve a package, a number of companies offer smart locks and boxes for use at home," the Journal writes. "BoxLock, for example, sells a Wi-Fi connected lock that collects tracking information on coming deliveries and alerts homeowners when they arrive. Delivery drivers use the lock to scan a package’s bar code, which opens the lock on a secured storage box. The homeowner then receives an alert that a package has arrived."
Another example: "In Las Vegas, home builder Toll Brothers is integrating package lockers into home designs. It announced last year that it would be installing smart lockers at homes at Mesa Ridge at Summerlin. The company joined with Parcel Pending to provide the lockers, which can be customized to fit the home’s aesthetics."
