Three-quarters of Britons have picked up a parcel from an out-of-home (OOH) point in the past year rather than at their door. That’s the headline from new research by Citizens Advice, the UK consumer watchdog, based on a survey of over 4,500 parcel users. It confirms what the sector has felt coming for a while: OOH delivery is no longer a niche, but a structural part of the delivery landscape.
The appeal is easy to explain. People aren’t home, don’t want an unattended parcel on the doorstep, and would rather pay a bit less. OOH delivery is on average 26% cheaper than home delivery among the UK’s five largest parcel companies. But according to the research, flexibility (not price) is the main driver: 66% cite it as a reason, versus 47% who mention cost.
Self-service lockers are the most popular single option, preferred by 37% of PUDO users. But most respondents
preferred some kind of staffed service (including 24% Post Offices, 21% convenience stores, 15% in-store
collection).
Here’s where it gets interesting, and typical of this stage of the delivery transition: success in aggregate hides unequal access. Older people, disabled people and rural residents demonstrably use OOH points less – not because they wouldn’t want to, but because the infrastructure fails them. Only 36% of rural residents live or work within a 20-minute walk of a pick-up/drop-off point (PUDO), against 83% of urban residents. And among people with a long-term disability, 51% report a physical barrier when using a parcel locker; often simply a compartment set too high to reach.
That’s exactly the pattern you’d expect when market players let infrastructure grow on the basis of profitability rather than a public coverage obligation. Densely populated areas get lockers, sparsely populated ones don’t. So despite the promise of more choice, OOH delivery risks becoming a new dividing line between who does and doesn’t get access to the cheaper, more flexible alternative.
Citizens Advice makes two recommendations that translate directly to the Dutch and European debate: regulators (here, Ofcom – but equally relevant for the ACM) should structurally monitor proximity to PUDOs and their accessibility, and parcel companies should be required to work with disabled users to fix barriers such as locker height.
Recommendation to parcel companies: Work with disabled consumers to identify and rectify PUDO
accessibility issues. Locker height is the key issue we came across, so companies should ensure
lockers are reachable or the option to request lower lockers is available. Information on accessibility
options for both home and out-of-home delivery should be easily available to consumers.
The lesson isn’t that parcel lockers are bad. It’s that every delivery innovation that presents itself as “more choice” first needs to be tested against one question: choice for whom, exactly?
Walther Ploos van Amstel.
Source: research by Citizens Advice, the UK consumer watchdog
Also read: Dutch Cities Move to Regulate Parcel Locker Growth