Customers can direct packages to lockers that will be placed outside 7-Eleven and retail locations
United Parcel Service has struggled in recent years to balance the booming business of e-commerce. As a result, it has introduced measures to cut costs including route-planning software, pooling deliveries and other initiatives. PHOTO: BLOOMBERG NEWS
By
LAURA STEVENS
United Parcel Service Inc. is rolling out 300 new locker pickup locations nationwide after what it says was a successful test of nine locations in Chicago.
The lockers are part of a broader effort by the delivery company to both lower the costs of delivering e-commerce packages, as well as to meet changing consumer demands as online shopping booms.
“What we’ve found is that consumers do like the 24/7 access,” said Kalin Robinson,director of the locker program. The lockers also help prevent package theft.
The locker build out, which began in June and will initially be available in five states, is considered a supplement to the company’s already existing Access Point program, where UPS pays local merchants a small fee to act as a package pickup location.
Customers who use UPS’s My Choice app can direct their packages to the lockers, which will be placed outside 7-Eleven Inc. stores as well as independently owned and operated retail locations.
UPS has struggled in recent years to balance the booming business of e-commerce, which is inherently higher cost than the delivery company’s traditional business-to-business deliveries. Drivers now have to drive farther to deliver packages spaced out in a neighborhood. Missed delivery attempts are more costly.
As a result, UPS has introduced measures including its Orion route-planning software, Access Point locations to pool deliveries and other initiatives to cut costs. The company also raised prices on oversize and other expensive deliveries.
UPS now has 8,000 Access Point locations at local businesses in the U.S. and more than 24,000 locations world-wide. Lockers will initially be available in Illinois, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Washington.
Write to Laura Stevens at [email protected]
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