And yet somehow here in Poland we have like 5+ companies (InPost, Allegro, several delivery services and even Orlen - the gas station operator - of all things!) one-upping each other in placing parcel lockers on every flat piece of land that's too small for developers to build an apartment block on. I have 10+ of such lockers within 5 minutes walk of my apartment. Now how is that possible?

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-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.

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?

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, 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.

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.

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.

The prevalence of Ring-style doorbell cameras might also disincentivize porch thievery

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.

Dude you just replied to a comment about Amazon Lockers, one of many locker services that do exactly what you described in the US. If you combine all the companies (I dunno why you would), there's a lot more than 10 per 5 minute walk in a city

I know; but I was surprised about implied lack of ubiquity of the kind of lockers that are massively deployed where I live.

They're ubiquitous, but few prefer them over the convenience of delivery to the doorstep. Buyers are never responsible for missing packages so there's little incentive to use lockers unless you're buying a secret gift or live in a very sketchy neighborhood or your home is far enough from the warehouses that same-day delivery is only available at the locker

I was going to counter it, but I guess same-day delivery is what makes this different from my experience. As a buyer, I'm incentivized to not miss packages, because I've already waited between 2 to 7 days for it, and I don't fancy doubling that time over a delivery dispute. But if my packages were all same-day delivered, I suppose I would give less of a damn.

Well not all of them, but I'd say half my packages are delivered same-day in the bay area and most of the rest are 1 day. It depends on your shopping habits and what products are popular in your area. "essentials" like cables, snacks, batteries, hot sauce, etc are always same-day while large items like microscopes can take 2 days

Regarding missed packages, are you talking about stolen packages? I've had a few cases where delivery was one day late and one time I got the wrong order (but got to keep the free groceries along with a full refund for my actual order) but I've never had a package just disappear altogether. Even Aliexpress orders that take 2-4 weeks from China eventually show up.

By missing here I meant missing the delivery, and having the package returned to sender, and/or stashed at the logistics center somewhere in the ass-end of a gravel road far out of town.

I've had a single-digit number of packages never delivered, most of them years ago, from Aliexpress (which, at least back then, had a very buyer-favoring dispute process, so I would get my money back with three clicks or so).

Wait you have to be home for every delivery? How would someone with an on-site day job receive packages?

In the US all carriers drop packages at door (or in the building's locker if you live in an apartment complex). Some packages need to be signed (alcohol, nicotine, gun ammo, etc) but the vast majority of deliveries involve zero human interaction

> Wait you have to be home for every delivery? How would someone with an on-site day job receive packages?

Sort of. Note that I'm a city dweller, living in a flat in an apartment block.

This is a real problem; classical solutions involve having another household member receive the parcel, asking the delivery person to deliver to a neighbor who you know is OK with it (since I started working remotely, I frequently am that neighbor), having them drop the package in front of your door (undesirable, but works in case where there's an extra door between your flat and the staircase), or putting your place of work as delivery address (if your company is happy about it; some are not). Dedicated "package send/receive" stores became a thing, then started disappearing as grocery store chains became package drop points. And then came the parcel lockers.

I imagine this problem was the primary driver of mass, enthusiastic adoption of parcel lockers - for the last decade, I've had at least one within 5 minutes of home, and this let me pick the parcel up at my leisure.

These days, most packages we order go through lockers; the ones are don't are usually medical or plain heavy (10-20kg worth of cat litter, soft drinks, etc.). This works because I work remotely, and my wife is yet to return to work after post-partum period.

Huh, that's fascinating and bizarre

If a parcel I ordered to my house gets sent to a pickup point, there’s an extremely good chance that the sender will be taking that parcel back and I’ll do without or order another one.

Only if I really needed that specific thing pretty badly today would I spend a few bucks and 15 minutes to drive over to come get it.

I ordered some physical thing, not that thing and a quest.

> They're ubiquitous, but few prefer them over the convenience of delivery to the doorstep. Buyers are never responsible for missing packages so there's little incentive to use lockers unless you're buying a secret gift or live in a very sketchy neighborhood or your home is so far from the warehouses that same-day delivery is only available at the locker

Then why so much effort is needed to stop package theft to the point of giving access to your house to strangers? Apparently getting package on your doorstep is not as convenient as you would like others to believe. Using such lockers is convenient and secure, giving package to recipient hands is secure but not convenient, leaving package at doorstep* is neither.

*or any other place convenient for whomever is delivering it

I gave several reasons why someone would want garage delivery. Services like walmart InHome are fairly common in the US. Consumers are willing to pay extra for the service and retailers like not having to refund stolen packages in sketchy neighborhoods

They'd be pretty easy to secure on a wood porch and only require minor power tools on a concrete porch to bolt down. Even if you only chained or cabled it to the railing that'd do a lot. Don't forget thieves won't know until they move the thing if there's even a package to steal.