Analysis of User Attitudes and Behavior in the Context of Traditional Delivery and the Use of Parcel Lockers

Over the last decade, e-commerce has spurred the growth in parcel lockers. This relatively new phenomenon has the potential to significantly impact different aspects of the traditional postal delivery model. First of all, preliminary research shows that consumers approach parcel lockers positively, although it is yet only used by a rather small part of end users. Secondly, parcel locker delivery is estimated to be more cost efficient than traditional home delivery. Thirdly, parcel lockers are expected to have a positive impact on ecological sustainability. This paper gives an overview of the parcel locker landscape of several countries with differing postal market characteristics. The paper continues with an analysis of the sustainability and cost efficiency of parcel lockers. Finally, some potential regulatory challenges are outlined.

Purpose The growth of last-mile delivery presents challenges like environmental impact, operational inefficiencies and risks of theft or damage. This study explores parcel locker adoption as a potential solution, focusing on the roles of information framing and consumer characteristics in influencing consumer adoption. It offers insights into prioritizing benefits (environmental, security, convenience) in information framing and which consumer traits, such as regulatory focus and gender, to consider in designing and promoting parcel locker networks. Design/methodology/approach We test our hypotheses with three scenario-based experiments. The first focuses on the key parcel locker benefit of environmental sustainability framing, the second on security framing and the third on convenience framing. Findings Our results show that consumers are more likely to use parcel locker delivery when exposed to loss-framed environmental or security information, particularly when they are male. Additionally, promotion-focused individuals, particularly males, are the most likely users when presented with loss-framed messages emphasizing the inconvenience and insecurity of home delivery. Research limitations/implications Our findings produce a middle range theory of gender and regulatory focus in the context of consumer participation in parcel locker delivery. Specifically, we find that gender and regulatory focus influence consumer reactions to information disclosure, with loss-framed information more strongly influencing consumer intent for promotion-focused individuals. Practical implications Managers seeking to introduce parcel lockers or expand existing parcel locker networks should incorporate security and convenience into their locker network decisions. Initial locker bays should be located in or near sites that experience high consumer traffic from promotion-focused males. Additionally, information disclosed should highlight these security and convenience benefits compared to the relative inconvenience and risk associated with home delivery. Social implications While information disclosures often emphasize the environmental benefits associated with parcel locker use, likely users find other benefits more convincing. Highlighting these alternative factors and incorporating them into parcel locker network design will still allow for environmental benefits, including carrier CO2 reduction, to emerge from increased parcel locker use. As locker networks become more established, expanding the network to cater to additional consumers may allow service providers to focus information on environmental benefits. Originality/value Prior research assumes an existing parcel locker network or consumer base when studying network design and adoption. This study highlights the importance of tailoring information to consumer characteristics, emphasizing network features that best align with potential parcel locker users. Specifically, we found gender and regulatory focus to influence consumer reaction to information disclosure, where loss-framed information is the most influential particularly for promotion-focus individuals.

Purpose Parcel lockers’ integration into China’s e-commerce could solve traditional home delivery’s inefficiency and sustainability issues. Yet, adoption lags. The paper aims to analyze consumer motivations and decision-making in the shift from home delivery to lockers and to aid in developing strategies for adoption. Design/methodology/approach The research initially constructs a push-pull-mooring model. Subsequently, an electronic questionnaire yielded 556 valid responses, analyzed via partial least squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM). Conclusively, PLS Multi-Group analysis (PLS-MGA) was used to assess consumer reactions, segmented by online shopping frequency, to the push, pull, and mooring influences. Findings The study elucidates that a confluence of factors critically influences consumer inclination to transition from traditional home delivery to parcel lockers. Push factors like time risk, privacy risk, and price deter traditional delivery use. Pull factors, namely monetary rewards and green value, encourage locker adoption. Inertia hinders service change. The PLS-MGA shows varied consumer responses based on shopping frequency. Originality/value The research is at the forefront of research into consumers’ transition from home delivery to parcel lockers. It examines the role of monetary rewards, which has not been previously explored in the parcel locker adoption literature. Furthermore, it identifies key factors influencing the switch, informing policymakers and industry figures.

Currently, parcel delivery activities are growing rapidly in the urban area along with the increase in online shopping transactions. This trend has an impact on the deterioration in the performance of the urban transportation system due to the increase of fleet of goods carriers as part of last mile delivery of online shopping. To overcome this situation, many countries have developed a delivery service using a parcel locker. In parcel locker service, consumers collect their shipments from lockers, which are mostly situated in public places, such as train stations, gas filling places, convenience stores, etc., instead of receiving them at their homes using a home delivery service. This service also exists in Indonesia, but its use is still not popular. This study aims to develop a choice model of last mile supply package between home delivery and parcel locker. The development of the model is based on the Binomial Logit Model. The calibration process uses the results of Stated Preference survey conducted to online shoppers who have not used parcel locker. Hypothetical conditions used in this survey represent the cost and location of a parcel locker. Location is represented by the shortest (<1 km), medium (1–3 km) and longest (3–5 km) distance of a parcel locker to the respondent’s home. Given the current cost, the potential demand for parcel lockers is 26%, 17% and 13% for short, medium and long distance, respectively. When the willingness to pay of the respondent is represented by a value whereby both methods will be chosen with the same probability, the parcel locker must offer a cost of 65% and 33%, respectively, of the home delivery option for the condition of short distance and medium distance; whereas the parcel locker cannot compete for long distance condition.

The expansion of information and communication technologies has significantly contributed to the growth of e-commerce, with the global market value steadily increasing. A critical element of this ecosystem is the method of product delivery, which has diversified to include home delivery, pick-up points, in-store collection, and parcel lockers. Parcel lockers offer consumers the flexibility to retrieve purchases at their convenience, independent of store hours or home presence, making them an increasingly popular choice. In recent years, urban areas have seen rapid growth in the number of parcel lockers and the entry of new delivery service providers. This paper investigates the development of parcel lockers in the core cities of the Metropolis GZM. It addresses two main research questions: (1) How many parcel lockers are in these cities? (2) How has their number changed across three six-month intervals from October 2023 to October 2024? The study focuses on the five leading parcel locker operators in Poland, presenting data from October 2023, April 2024, and October 2024. Parcel locker density was recalculated per 1,000 inhabitants and per square kilometre, and skewness was also assessed to understand spatial distribution. Findings reveal that the most significant growth occurred between the first and second periods. All core cities experienced an increase in parcel lockers, alongside a shift toward a more balanced market among operators. While minor asymmetries in distribution were detected, the overall layout remains relatively even. This paper may serve as a foundation for further, in-depth research concerning the location of parcel lockers.

Researchers have been intrigued by parcel lockers for last-mile delivery services, prompting them to investigate the matter more. This study examines factors affecting consumers’ intention to use parcel lockers through the Unified Theory of Acceptance and the Use of Technology (UTAUT). This study proposed the mediating role of performance expectancy in the relationship between social influence and effort expectancy with the intention of adopting parcel locker services. An online structured questionnaire was employed and managed to collect data from 444 respondents. The non-probability purposive sampling technique was chosen as the sampling technique, while the SmartPLS version 4.0 analysed research data. The data found that performance expectancy and compatibility over consumers' intention strongly exerted the intention to use parcel lockers. For the mediator factor, the analysis uncovered evidence that performance expectancy can effectively mediate the relationship between social influence, effort expectancy, and intention to adopt parcel lockers. The research demonstrated the significance of the UTAUT model in pinpointing the reason for the parcel locker's adoption intention in Malaysia. The research findings could provide meaningful information to logistics businesses, courier companies, and relevant government bodies to design and implement strategies to enhance the acceptance and usage of parcel lockers as the last delivery option compared to home delivery.

Under the circumstance that parcel locker has gradually become an important way of terminal distribution, the resource turnover rate of intelligent parcel locker is low, which cannot meet more needs. In China, there is a huge B2 e-commerce business here, and there is a relatively large population density in first-tier cities, causing the last mile of Chinese e-commerce delivery to face tremendous pressure every day. However, through analysis of survey data, in a certain tier city in China, each parcel was stored in a parcel locker for more than 10 hours, which caused a very low turnover rate of the lockers. In order to explore the influencing factors that affect the turnover rate of parcel lockers, this article started with obtaining real-time data of parcel lockers, and then analyzed the characteristics of the data to find the effect function of the storage time for the cargo in the parcel lockers. During the empirical analysis, we found that users showed significantly different characteristics, that is, they were divided into two types of users. Then, this article mines the characteristics of the two types of users and names them as the First-class users, Second-class users. On this basis, this article finds that the length of parcel storage is related to user classification. In addition, this article conducted a series of rigorous empirical research and analysis in order to explore the impact of other factors on the storage time of the package,, and finally found that under the same type of user, there is a significant correlation between the length of storage time and the pickup time. Therefore, this paper established a dumb linear regression model to explore the law of parcel staying time in parcel locker, which the user type was used as a dummy variable, and the pickup time was used as another independent variable. The model passed the significance test.Therefore, this article further analyzes the influencing factors of the utilization efficiency of lockers. This provides some perspectives for us to find measures to improve the utilization rate of lockers in the future. For example, the idea of user classification can be applied to the research of pickup users and provide some personalized distribution services.

In recent years, globalization, technological developments, and the growth of e-commerce transactions have increased the demand for logistics activities. Increasing demands affect logistics activities at all stages of supply chains, particularly the final stage, where delivery to customers occurs in urban areas. This stage, known as last-mile logistics, is not only the most expensive and inefficient part of supply chains, but also causes many problems, including increased freight mobility in urban areas, traffic congestion, parking issues, air and noise pollution, and carbon emissions. Reducing these economic and environmental costs is important for sustainable urban development. The sustainability of a city depends on its economic self-sufficiency, the living standards of its population under equal and fair conditions, and sensitive practices in environmental and waste management. Today, in addition to the traditional last-mile logistics practices of delivering the package to the customer's home/office, there are many new practices (delivery via parcel locker, drone delivery, robot delivery, micro-depot usage, urban consolidation center usage, pick-up/drop-off point, click-and-collect, crowd-sourcing, etc.) to overcome the mentioned drawbacks and manage the process more effectively and efficiently. Collaborative applications for these novel delivery methods are increasing day by day in order to minimize the costs of logistics service providers, facilitate customers' access to service, and thus improve customer satisfaction. In this study, we investigate different novel last-mile logistics methods in the literature and in practice that have been implemented with collaborative strategies. Among the 43 studies reviewed, urban consolidation centers, parcel lockers, and PUDO points emerged as the most frequently considered collaborative models. The advantages of the collaboration strategies and the barriers to their development are presented, and researchers, practitioners, and city managers are guided in developing new policies and strategies.

Alternative delivery applications are gaining popularity today, and parcel lockers are differentiated from others as they offer different delivery location options to customers. One of the biggest problems faced by courier companies today is that customers are not always available at the place of delivery during delivery. This leads to an increase in failed deliveries that place an extra burden on last mile operations, not only in terms of cost, but also in terms of environmental concerns. One of the effective methods to deal with this problem is parcel lockers. Parcel lockers and related concepts are currently used in various countries worldwide, and in some countries, their installation and use are supported by the government. Parcel lockers not only help logistics companies navigate their operations and costs, but also give the customer the power of choice. Therefore, it is considered necessary to investigate the parcel locker applications in Turkey. This paper intends to present the current state of parcel lockers in Turkey, the companies providing the service, their profiles, and their plans to provide beneficial knowledge to academia and industry.

When carriers deliver goods to customers, last-mile delivery is one of the supply chain’s most costly and environmentally damaging components [1]. In recent years, a growing number of scholars have investigated parcel lockers as a solution to the problems of last-mile delivery [2]. The goal of this work is to satisfy urban consumers’ demand for online shopping while lowering CO2 emissions. However, few studies have focused on the parcel locker itself. Therefore, for the first time, this paper introduces clustering methods into the study of last-mile delivery on parcel lockers; moreover, it builds a methodology to analyse the spatial distribution of parcel lockers and identifies parcel locker clustering based on the DBSCAN algorithm. This study employs Ordinary Least Squares Regression and Geographically Weighted Regression models with data on the socioeconomic, built environment and public transportation to quantify the relationship between the degree of parcel locker clustering in London and these factors at the global and local levels. The study’s findings indicate that parcel lockers are spatially clustered in London, with a significant degree of clustering in central London. Fufrthermore, the degree of parcel locker clustering is affected by population density, restaurant density, supermarket density, underground station density and bus stop density. However, the influence of these factors on the degree of parcel locker clustering at different sites is varied. Based on this, we propose that the government and businesses collaborate to establish various renovation projects and strategies for various MSOAs to improve the spatial distribution of parcel lockers, helping London achieve its goal of becoming a zero-carbon city by 2050.

This study presents the Covering Routing Problem with Robots and Parcel Lockers (CRP-R-PL), a challenge arising in sustainable last-mile delivery contexts such as e-commerce and city distribution. In this problem, trucks depart from a central depot, delivering parcels directly to a subset of customers or a subset of parcel lockers. With these parcel lockers, the remaining customers could pick up items if they prefer the pick-up delivery method. In addition, each truck is equipped with an electric-powered Sidewalk Autonomous Delivery Robot (SADR), a sustainable delivery solution used in the U.S. and Canada by Uber and Amazon. This zero-emission vehicle is deployed to get off the truck, serve one or multiple customers, and then return to the same truck for battery swap and package retrieval. For the routing of SADRs, the trucks act as a moveable satellite depot to serve the remaining customers. The CRP-R-PL seeks cost-minimizing solutions by determining optimal parcel locker locations and routes of trucks and SADRs to serve all customers. We offer a mixed-integer programming formulation and a greedy heuristic to solve it. The CRP-R-PL includes three decisions: 1) finding the location of parcel lockers, 2) routing the trucks to visit the customers and parcel lockers, and 3) routing the SADRs to serve the remaining customers. Since this problem has yet to be studied in the literature, a new set of benchmark instances is introduced for the CRP-R-PL and solved by Gurobi alongside the parameter's sensitivity analysis.

This study investigates the factors influencing consumers' adoption of parcel lockers for last‐mile deliveries. Attitudinal data on parcel locker adoption were collected from individuals in the United States, and structural equation models were estimated to assess consumers' intention to use the lockers as a delivery method. The study is grounded in the Technology Acceptance Model, evaluating perceived ease of use, usefulness, risks, and location preferences. Consumer attitudes indicate that parcel lockers are perceived as easy to use and useful, offering efficient and fast delivery times. Moreover, consumers generally regard these facilities as safe. However, perceived risks include concerns about privacy and the potential loss of packages. The results show that urban residents are less likely to use parcel lockers than suburban residents. Additionally, consumers show a preference for parcel lockers located near their workplaces. The modeling results provide critical implications for service providers, highlighting the features that users value when considering this delivery alternative, thereby aiding in evaluating potential parcel locker implementations.

In the e-commerce last-mile delivery process, the asset operators (logistics service providers who own parcel locker facilities) support their delivery service with parcel lockers, while the non-asset operators (logistics service providers without parcel lockers) perform door-to-door delivery. Due to demand fluctuation, asset operators’ parcel-locker slots may be left vacant, while non-asset operators are stuck with the high-cost door-to-door service. The exclusiveness of parcel-locker usage reduces resource utilization and service efficiency in last-mile delivery. Therefore, this paper proposes a parcel-locker-sharing model in which these two parties share the parcel-locker capacity in last-mile delivery. The asset operator rents the unused parcel lockers to the non-asset operator by charging a rental fee,while the non-asset operator rents the parcel lockers for delivery to save logistics costs. The motivation of this alliance is to increase the profits of both parties and that of the total supply chain. This study establishes the supply-chain profit model for the parcel-locker-sharing framework and finds that the profit or loss depends on the comparison of the operation cost savings and delivery-cost savings. A numerical analysis is conducted to validate the final result. The research further suggests the optimal rental quantity and price interval. This paper is the first to study the operational mechanism of sharing the parcel locker between two distinct types of logistics service providers and to offer recommendations for industrial application.

Parcel locker systems in a car dominant city: Location, characterisation and potential impacts on city planning and consumer travel access

Analysis of Service Efficiency of Parcel Locker in Last-mile Delivery: A Case Study in Norway