It looks like Amazon.com is expanding its Lockers program, which allows customers to have their deliveries sent to, yes, nearby lockers.
The idea was first reported last fall. It may seem like an inconvenient alternative to home delivery at first — until you think about some of the headaches that can come up, like worrying one of your neighbors will swipe the package as it’s sitting on your doorstep, or making sure you’re at home to sign for it. With Amazon Lockers, the package sits securely at a nearby pick-up station, until you come by at your convenience (well, as long as it’s within three days of delivery) and open the locker up with a special code.
Anecdotal reports suggested that at least one of the early lockers in Seattle didn’t result in a stampede of new customers. However, Amazon continued to expand the program — the site now lists Seattle, New York, Washington, DC, and London as participating geographies. And our own Ryan Lawler just saw that there are Amazon Lockers available for delivery in Silicon Valley — three, to be precise, at 7-Elevens in San Carlos, Palo Alto, and Mountain View.
I haven’t had a chance to drive down to the Valley to see the lockers for myself (bad journalist!), but I was able to order a book for delivery to the San Carlos location, so they appear to be up-and-running. The interface for delivering to a locker is a bit wonky right now, because you can’t set an Amazon Locker as your default address, so you have to go in and manually select it each time. That, along with the limited locations, suggests this is still very much an experiment. But it’s an experiment that’s growing.
I’ve also emailed Amazon for comment and will update if I hear back.
Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN), is a leading global Internet company and one of the most trafficked Internet retail destinations worldwide. Amazon is one of the first companies to sell products deep into the long tail by housing them in numerous warehouses and distributing products from many partner companies. Amazon directly sells or acts as a platform for the sale of a broad range of products. These include books, music, videos, consumer electronics, clothing and household products. The majority of Amazon’s...
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