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You're talking about the commercial parcel lockers — the ones that fit a whole neighbourhood's deliveries, that are therefore essentially big sturdy metal stora

by derefr 3y ago

You're talking about the commercial parcel lockers — the ones that fit a whole neighbourhood's deliveries, that are therefore essentially big sturdy metal storage racks underneath — too big and heavy to just pick up and walk away with. Every country has these to some degree; I imagine they're most popular in places that 1. have colder climates, but 2. where people don't tend to drive (like Poland?) The US has some, but the suburban long-distance-commute car culture + generally not-too-bad climate, means that people in the US generally expect to pick up packages from further away, and so implementation of these in the US has lagged behind other countries. However, my comment, and the one it was replying to, are talking about something else — a hypothetical concept of small lockers that serve single homes, given to the homeowner, to be located near the home's mailbox/mailslot. (Basically, logistics-provider-provided versions of these things that you can technically buy online — but where I've never seen anyone with one: https://www.amazon.ca/WeHere-Package-Delivery-Anti-Theft-Password/dp/B09GJJ9LKB/ https://www.amazon.ca/WeHere-Package-Delivery-Anti-Theft-Pas...). And the thing about these is... they really aren't a good idea. They're not too big and heavy to just steal. Anyone who can walk up to your porch with a moving dolly can walk away with it.

philwelch 3y ago
You could always bolt them to the ground. Some older houses have passthroughs built into the walls for deliveries of milk or coal or ice. I’m surprised this feature hasn’t been resurrected for package deliveries.
TeMPOraL 3y ago
Fair enough. I got confused because you mentioned Amazon Lockers, which to my understanding, are the proper brand name of the kind of parcel lockers I mentioned, as deployed by Amazon. I agree that per-household lockers are... tricky at best. But then, if we're talking homes, and thus presumably lawns in front of them, I wonder what are the difficulties of selling a multi-slot locker that would be bolted down to the ground (or perhaps a bunch of concrete filling a hole in the ground), and thus as easy to steal as a thick fence post or an ATM? Is this too expensive for homeowners?
- sokoloff 3y ago
  What problem is that solving for the homeowner? I get hundreds of packages per year (not an exaggeration) and as far as I know, exactly zero have ever been stolen. Missing packages are invariably delivered to someplace else that must have had a better vibe for the driver that day. (I’ll get pics of proof of delivery with a package that is clearly not at my house.) In that environment, what problem do I have that could be solved by this, and how much effort (and aesthetics) am I willing to spend to solve it? Now, if my house shared a wall with two other houses and people walked by my front door all the time, maybe I’d have a theft problem due to greater opportunities for it to happen. Places with lawns probably don’t have nearly as much package theft just due to less foot traffic.
- dpkirchner 3y ago
  I'm in the US. Our neighborhood has a multi-slot locker like you describe. It has a small box per house and two larger boxes. The whole thing gets broken in to every couple years, after which the post office will not deliver anything until they fix it weeks later (and they're the only ones allowed to try). When this happens you have to go to a post office to get your mail.
- ElevenLathe 3y ago
  As others have pointed out in this thread, the "porch pirate" problem is just kind of not a problem for most people/places. I've never heard of anyone I know having a package stolen off their porch. This is even living in relatively high-density (for the US) apartment complexes. Leaving stuff on the porch is basically good enough, so nobody is in a hurry to "fix" anything about it, except maybe Amazon themselves because even something that happens 0.1% of the time is a big enough problem when you operate at their scale. I suspect that some of the the same reasons that lockers aren't economically feasible in most of the US is the same reason that the theft isn't a problem: low density. If you're a porch pirate, you need to expect that the value of your stolen goods covers at least your gas and time driving around stealing stuff, plus some risk premium for doing the crime. If the average value of a package is below this amount, the crime doesn't pay. There will still be instances where people haven't done this math, or crimes of opportunity, or just dense stretches where it does make sense depending on the price of gas, but it isn't a nationwide problem.

by derefr 3y ago

philwelch 3y ago

You could always bolt them to the ground. Some older houses have passthroughs built into the walls for deliveries of milk or coal or ice. I’m surprised this feature hasn’t been resurrected for package deliveries.

TeMPOraL 3y ago

Fair enough. I got confused because you mentioned Amazon Lockers, which to my understanding, are the proper brand name of the kind of parcel lockers I mentioned, as deployed by Amazon. I agree that per-household lockers are... tricky at best. But then, if we're talking homes, and thus presumably lawns in front of them, I wonder what are the difficulties of selling a multi-slot locker that would be bolted down to the ground (or perhaps a bunch of concrete filling a hole in the ground), and thus as easy to steal as a thick fence post or an ATM? Is this too expensive for homeowners?

sokoloff 3y ago
What problem is that solving for the homeowner? I get hundreds of packages per year (not an exaggeration) and as far as I know, exactly zero have ever been stolen. Missing packages are invariably delivered to someplace else that must have had a better vibe for the driver that day. (I’ll get pics of proof of delivery with a package that is clearly not at my house.) In that environment, what problem do I have that could be solved by this, and how much effort (and aesthetics) am I willing to spend to solve it? Now, if my house shared a wall with two other houses and people walked by my front door all the time, maybe I’d have a theft problem due to greater opportunities for it to happen. Places with lawns probably don’t have nearly as much package theft just due to less foot traffic.
dpkirchner 3y ago
I'm in the US. Our neighborhood has a multi-slot locker like you describe. It has a small box per house and two larger boxes. The whole thing gets broken in to every couple years, after which the post office will not deliver anything until they fix it weeks later (and they're the only ones allowed to try). When this happens you have to go to a post office to get your mail.
ElevenLathe 3y ago
As others have pointed out in this thread, the "porch pirate" problem is just kind of not a problem for most people/places. I've never heard of anyone I know having a package stolen off their porch. This is even living in relatively high-density (for the US) apartment complexes. Leaving stuff on the porch is basically good enough, so nobody is in a hurry to "fix" anything about it, except maybe Amazon themselves because even something that happens 0.1% of the time is a big enough problem when you operate at their scale. I suspect that some of the the same reasons that lockers aren't economically feasible in most of the US is the same reason that the theft isn't a problem: low density. If you're a porch pirate, you need to expect that the value of your stolen goods covers at least your gas and time driving around stealing stuff, plus some risk premium for doing the crime. If the average value of a package is below this amount, the crime doesn't pay. There will still be instances where people haven't done this math, or crimes of opportunity, or just dense stretches where it does make sense depending on the price of gas, but it isn't a nationwide problem.