Smart lockers have proven to be massively convenient in the age of ecommerce, particularly when you realize that the average shopper makes an estimated 19 online purchases each year, depending on their location — that’s a lot of deliveries!
With increasing ubiquity of ecommerce as a whole, one of the most important parts of running a business, residential complex, or other facility is ensuring deliveries can be made as safely and efficiently as possible. This includes utilizing smart locker technology, but just as importantly, where they are located on your premises.
Here we’ll go over some common types of facilities that utilize smart locker technology and give advice on how to make package pickup as simple as possible.
Where to Place Smart Lockers in Retail Stores
Alongside the growth of ecommerce is the buy-online-pickup-in-store (BOPIS) model. For people that prefer to shop locally or have difficulties with delivery options, BOPIS has been a lifesaver. As an industry, BOPIS methods accounted for around $95 billion in revenue throughout 2022, or about 9% of ecommerce sales. It’s a great way to bridge the gap between brick-and-mortar and online shopping.
Making order pickups as easy and seamless as possible is critical for small businesses, particularly if they don’t ship their goods. The location of your retail smart locker system largely depends on the store layout, but it should be near the main entrance, in full view so it is as easily accessible as possible.
To take full advantage of BOPIS, Smiota Smart Lockers are backed by 24/7/365 support features, modular design capabilities, and enterprise-grade security. They boast improved inventory tracking, operational efficiency, and order fulfillment in addition to saving time, money, and headache for staff. Through a dashboard that hosts real-time analytics, runs reports, tracks locker utilization, and more, it has never been easier to increase customer satisfaction and convenience through BOPIS.
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Where Should Parcel Lockers Be Located in Residential Complexes?
Multifamily apartment complexes and condos are some of the most significant types of facilities that should use smart locker technology. We’ve covered the porch pirate phenomenon previously, but it’s unfortunately not uncommon for residents to experience package theft at some point — in fact, nearly one in seven Americans experienced package theft in 2021 and a significant portion of those experienced it more than once.
With Smiota Smart Lockers, all packages go to a designated, secure area. The temperature-controlled lockers can also accommodate a wide variety of other deliverables like groceries, meal orders, and dry cleaning to ensure the delivery’s integrity is uncompromised. The lockers are easy to use so pickups and dropoffs take mere seconds, and property staff can step away from package management to focus on other priorities.
The ideal smart locker location for a residential complex would be anywhere with 24/7 access, including:
- Mailroom
- Lobby
- Other common area(s)
To keep packages secure and accessible, it’s ideal to have a dedicated mailroom for package drop offs. In the event that this is not possible, a set of smart lockers should be placed in the lobby. This not only helps keep the lobby looking pristine, it keeps residents’ goods secure until they are ready for pickup.
Where to Place Smart Lockers for Universities
Universities deal with a lot of incoming and outgoing package deliveries on campuses. Whether it’s university equipment or student orders, chances are your university’s mailroom is buzzing at any given time.
Much like residential complexes, universities should place smart lockers in communal areas such as:
- In each dorm/student housing building
- In each university building
- Mailrooms
To enable quick deliveries for students, a locker unit should be placed in each building that houses students, particularly for large university campuses. If it’s a smaller school, one centralized mailroom would suffice if students frequently make pickups there.
However, when it comes to large operations like college campuses, it’s also a good idea not only to place lockers ideally, but to automate redundant processes to keep up with the large volume of packages. When thousands of students live on campus, manual mailroom management methods just can’t keep up. That’s why Smiota Smart Lockers offer mailroom software or integrate into your existing software to offer an end-to-end solution for both mail and package deliveries. This solution works for open and closed campuses — couriers can deliver to lockers at multiple dorms and buildings or to a single, centralized mailroom.
Smiota Smart Lockers Keep Your Operations Safe and Efficient
With top-of-the-line security features, sturdy materials, and modular design capabilities, Smiota’s smart lockers are your #1 resource to taking preventative measures against package thieves and ensuring mailroom efficiency. We will automate your shipping, receiving, and BOPIS services by providing 24/7 support access, heightened security, a customizable platform, and an app that easily integrates with your existing software.
Schedule a demo or give us a call to get started on your customized smart locker solution today!
