BufferBox: Amazon Lockers? We Had That Idea First

http://blogs.wsj.com/canadarealtime/2012/08/08/digits-bufferbox-amazon-lockers-we-had-that-idea-first/

by mmccauley • 14 years ago

84 46 14 years ago

blogs.wsj.com

fraserharris• 14 years ago

Any idea how fast will Amazon Lockers be rolling out across the US? Which metro's are they hitting first?

rexf• 14 years ago

"Amazon Lockers are currently located in Seattle, New York, the Washington, DC area, and London."

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/?nodeId=...

vampirical• 14 years ago

I was offered local locations (all 7-11s) for an order I placed to the SF Bay Area yesterday, so it looks like SF can be added to that list.

jenntoda• 14 years ago

What a perfect solution for peer-to-peer delivery and selling/buying stuff from craigslist! Amazon may have their lockers, but there's plenty of room for this take on use cases that Amazon wont (yet) - run fast!!! :)

ConstantineXVI2• 14 years ago

I don't think this is viable for Craigslist style transactions, meeting in person lets you verify the listing is what you expected and still leaves room for haggling if necessary. Picking up from a locker would require complete trust in the vendor and leave little room for recourse if something went wrong.

This could still be good for small transactions, Craigslist is just too small.

pbhjpbhj5• 14 years ago

It may be possible to reduce some of the risk with escrow tied to locker opening and probably with added ID requirements and maybe recording of locker contents.

oldgregg• 14 years ago

this has huge potential if they do it right. Let vendors pay with bitcoin. Let them pre-ship product that can be unlocked with a qr code. suddenly the silk road gets a lot more interesting.

solox3• 14 years ago

In a high-tech area, sure. In an area where vendors/customers don't even know what "a QR" is, Bali et al. will simply be wasting their limited storage space on a vastly unpredictable demand for products.

michaelt• 14 years ago

If you're going to pre-ship products and customers are going to leave home to pick them up, why not just stock them in a conventional retail store?

nodata• 14 years ago

1. You get exactly the product you want

2. You can collect the product whenever you want (24 hours a day)

3. Already paid, no queue

4. Price

5. Speed

pbhjpbhj5• 14 years ago

Staffing, stock-control, low margins, ...

A locker system is a little like a store - a store that stocks everything [that fits in to the locker] has no warehousing costs and very little staffing overhead, that's accessible 24-7 52 weeks a year, that allows for pseudo-anonymous shopping.

The last miles are hugely costly and certainly within a city it seems a priori that the optimal method of delivery is to require me to shift my arse and pick the stuff up from a mile or two away.

darklajid• 14 years ago

So, I ordered a Google Nexus 7 from a seller in the UK (not available in Germany). I really, really wanted to have that thing in my hands.

Unfortunately the guy used the Royal Mail and their daughter TNT for shipping, so no 'PackStation' for me.

Due to the totally useless tracking information I couldn't be at home, the thing was delivered to a nearby (just 200m!) shop. This shop opened at 10 and - due to summer holidays and reduced staff - closed at 15 again during that week. How braindead is this concept? Even a post office is more reliable and I've come to expect the PackStation service. The packet arrives as soon as possible (no 'customer not present' loops, no 'delivered to a neighbor' crap where I need to hunt that guy down and hope that he's home/available/opens the door, no trip to a weird shop (an antique furniture shop in my case), relying on their opening hours), I'll be notified instantly (SMS as soon as they close the door of that locker) and can pick it up whenever I want (like, drunk on a Sunday morning at 4 am - given I remember my PIN).

If you consider that these boxes are available ~everywhere~ in larger cities, you usually can schedule the delivery to a place that is on your way to work, home, the gym or near your favorite restaurant.

tl/dr: The service is worlds apart from 'You can pick up your thing in a shop at this address'.

easytiger• 14 years ago

Just want to say fuck QR codes and fuck bitcoin, not terribly constructive but two "advancements" that drive me nuts.

ddt• 14 years ago

It'll be interesting to see Amazon square off against a startup. They've been doing battle with B&M stores, Google and Apple. It'll be interesting to see how they deal with a company several orders of magnitude smaller than them. With the amplifying effect of YC behind them, it'll be interesting to watch.

rdl3• 14 years ago

So, if Amazon loses here, they still get to ship lots of products to people who might otherwise buy from a B&M store? Seems win/win for Amazon.

zhuzhuor2• 14 years ago

These lockers are good, but what I think we should really improve is the quality/performance of our mailing/delivery systems. The lockers are just a patch to the existing lame systems.

If a company can deliver all days in a week (including weekends) and all time in a day (including evenings and nights), and the delivery men really called before they left a note, that company would win the game.

capsule_toy2• 14 years ago

I actually think lockers are more convenient because I don't even have to think about the day and time. I just pick up my package when it's convenient.

I also imagine customized delivery times would increase costs and make logistics more difficult. The only place I know offhand that has customized delivery times is Tokyo, so I wonder how they manage. Probably more affordable in a high density area with couriers.

pbhjpbhj5• 14 years ago

>* Probably more affordable in a high density area with couriers.* //

Presumably the couriers are low paid too.

kalleboo2• 14 years ago

They do customized delivery times all over Japan, not only in Tokyo. Amazon same-day delivery is only in Tokyo though.

mmccauley4• 14 years ago

One of the major problems with carriers is that they are being pushed to drive costs down from retailers who can demand it. Residential deliveries are costly because 50% fail on the first attempt (this is why UPS charges an extra $1.25 for residential deliveries). Shipping is quickly becoming a commodity. Locker delivery enables delivery density (multiple parcels at one stop), saves huge costs compared to traditional residential deliveries, and makes returns a whole lot easier and cheaper.

zhuzhuor2• 14 years ago

Good point.

I think at least they can first call you before they attempt to deliver the package. If you are not there, then just keep the package for the next day's delivery. This will avoid the delivery failure and save time of both sides.

capsule_toy2• 14 years ago

Installing lockers is something that I would get into if I wasn't already involved with a company doing something very similar but not for package deliveries. Once you build out the infrastructure, you have an asset with good ROI and a moat against potential competitors. I know someone doing exactly this right now and is basically trying to expand as quickly as possible.

icegreentea• 14 years ago

I actually worked with BufferBox this summer as part of my design class. They mentioned that while they and Amazon Locker were breaking new ground here in North America, this type of service is pretty old-hat in Europe. For example, DHL runs their PackStation service in Germany (and apparently in the rest of Europe too) [http://www.dhl.de/en/paket/privatkunden/packstation.html]. There are a bunch of other fairly large and developed competitors all over Europe as well.

aristidb• 14 years ago

Wikipedia also has an English article about Packstation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Packstation

(You might think it's only on the German wikipedia, that's why I think this is worthwhile to post.)

adg2• 14 years ago

I always thought there were laws against running a service like this in the US. For example the rules for registering a USPS P.O. box are very stringent:

> To rent a PO Box, two different forms of identification are required. At least one of them must be a valid photo ID. [1]

This way they can actually track you down if you have something illegal shipped to the box.

A service like this where you can easily sign up without properly verifying your identity is just waiting to be used as a temporary drop-box for people shipping drugs from SilkRoad, people shipping goods they bought with a stolen credit card, etc.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-office_box#United_States

ryanhuff• 14 years ago

That Wikipedia article described USPS PO Boxes. Private companies (Mailboxes Etc, etc) have offered similar services in the US for years, although they are not technically a PO Box. They may have similar requirements, but the link that you provided does not discuss it.

adg2• 14 years ago

Right. USPS PO Box was just one example. It's my understanding that the other services have the same requirements.

E.g. I checked and UPS offers a service called My Choice:

> The UPS My ChoiceSM enrollment process uses public record information to verify your identity.

http://www.ups.com/content/us/en/resources/sri/ups_my_choice...

ttunguz• 14 years ago

Same day delivery services like these have existed in Japan for years. They're wonderful.

But they lend themselves to low weight/high value goods that are easily shipped. And to highly concentrated population centers where the higher costs of same day shipping associated with operating a warehouse or retail store in an expensive environment can be amortized over higher margin goods.

46Bit• 14 years ago

Saw one of these outside Y Combinator the other week - seriously cool idea. Best of luck with it, hope you expand to the UK soon enough.

rdl3• 14 years ago

It would be awesome if YC became a locker location.

mikeknoop• 14 years ago

My understanding is that it is. There's been a box inside (and now out front) for a few weeks now.

flurdy2• 14 years ago

The Norwegian postal service have been offering locker facility for parcels for awhile. Mostly in train/tube stations. I dont think they have been used much.

While interested I never did use one when I lived there as they cost much more than a normal delivery to your door and are very limited on for how long they are stored. Useless if you are away for the weekend or week, when such a locker service would be ideal.

http://www.posten.no/17889/postautomat http://www.postennorge.no/nyheter-og-media/nyhetsarkiv/gamle...

bering• 14 years ago

Same here in Denmark: http://www.postdanmark.dk/da/Privat/Selvbetjening/D%C3%B8gnp...

The ones here are used quite frequently. The delivery is the same as to your door.

flurdy2• 14 years ago

.... And as it turns out they were abandoned in 2011. (Google translate to the rescue for most of you)

http://www.postennorge.no/nyheter-og-media/nyhetsarkiv/nyhet...

http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?sl=auto&tl=en...

pisipisipisi2• 14 years ago

In Estonia we've had two-way boxes (where you can also send stuff) for a few years now. For example local eBay clone osta.ee uses it for quite convenient parcel service, as you sometimes don't really want somebody to ship to your home address.

pisipisipisi2• 14 years ago

Forgot the mandatory link: http://smartpost.ee/

rplnt• 14 years ago

When someone says they had an idea first, it's almost always not true. I didn't know any similar technology but I was sure that statement was bullshit. Comments here proved me right. Just say "before them" instead of "first" and you won't end up looking like a douche (well, a smaller douche because it's still bad to cry about things like this).

PS: It might be that the writer came up with the word "first" as it is not cited.

BufferBox: Amazon Lockers? We Had That Idea First

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