Sep 13
Amazon and Amazon Locker Delivery
Amazon Lockers are micro warehouse systems, closed shelves, mostly installed in partnering retail stores, where the mail order giant ships good for the customers to pick up at any time they wish. Amazon starts rolling out Amazon Locker Delivery in first pilot cities, the San Francisco area being first after Seattle.
In Germany, logistics company DHL has started this concept in 2001, named Packstation. Customers who can't be at home at the estimated arrival time of mail order items can have their packages delivered to one of the ~2500 (at the time of writing) stations. A small kiosk system on the station itself enables customers to pick-up their package 24/7 by swiping a plastic card and entering a PIN code.
As the stations so prominently serve as advertisement of an in-graspable service (logistics) in the public space, they are a huge success for DHL. From their perspective it's a closed system only DHL customers can use, and help them to communicate brand quality in a competitive environment.
It's easy to expect that Amazon's Lockers will perform similarly. The Lockers help reminding people in the real world of a service that tend to be invisible in the public space. And as the company is already filling DHL's Packstations in Germany, it can be expected that the ecommerce giant and the logistics giant will join forces in Germany again.
And, by the way, from how the Amazon Lockers look - it already seems DHL helped them happen in the US in the first place anyway.