Deliveries Even When You're Not Home

The strategy is based on the assumption that customers will value the convenience more highly than the risk. A theory about trade-offs that has been repeatedly re-validated in the internet era. JL

Matthias Verbergt reports in the Wall Street Journal:

Groceries and fresh food can be delivered in your absence and directly to where they belong: your kitchen and fridge.The experiment is part of a global race aimed at solving one of the main headaches facing retailers and logistics companies: failed delivery attempts, which usually cause lots of friction. The service hinges on a new add-on lock, which customers must install on their doors and which messengers can open with their smartphones.
In Sweden, groceries and fresh food can be delivered in your absence and directly to where they belong: your kitchen and fridge.
A Scandinavian courier company, PostNord AB, and supermarket chain, ICA AB, are testing the new service with about 20 households in the Swedish capital, promising that messengers will remove their shoes and unpack online deliveries, even when customers are away.
The pioneering service hinges on a new add-on lock, which customers must install on their doors and which messengers can open with their smartphones. Made by Swedish startup Glue AB, the lock allows residents to decide remotely when to allow access to their homes.
Kiku Mlosch, a 29-year-old German product manager living in Stockholm who has agreed to help test the delivery system, said she enjoys not having to wait at home and isn’t too concerned about security.
“Maybe I wouldn’t lay out my diamond ring,” she said, adding, however, that other people, including a cleaning lady, have access to her home when she is absent. “It’s quite a controllable risk.”
The Swedish experiment is part of a global race aimed at solving one of the main headaches facing retailers and logistics companies from Amazon.com Inc. to United Parcel Service Inc.: elusive customers. Without having to juggle the conflicting schedules of customers reluctant to sit at home, PostNord says it can organize more efficient delivery rounds and cut costs.
In-home, in-absentia delivery could help the logistics industry meet a continued surge in online commerce. This year, 8.6% of total retail sales world-wide will happen over the Internet, amounting to more than US$2 trillion in sales, according to digital marketing research firm eMarketer—a rise of 23% compared with 2015.
Unlike some more futuristic ideas, such as drone deliveries, the Swedish proposal appears to have the potential of quickly becoming operational on a large scale, said Matthias Winkenbach, director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Megacity Logistics Lab. Mr. Winkenbach has no ties to the project.
“It eliminates failed delivery attempts, which usually cause lots of friction,” he said. The cost of failed deliveries of goods ordered online was estimated at £771 million (US$1.13 billion) for 2014 in the U.K. alone, according to IMRG, an online-retail association.
To get around the problem, the logistics industry has been mostly focusing on halfway solutions, such as collection points or lockers. But those aren’t suited for fresh-food deliveries, and force customers to take on the final leg of their orders, often causing frustration.
A recent survey of more than 1,000 online, U.S.-based shoppers showed that half of those who opted to pick up goods in a store encountered problems getting their purchases. Storing the goods also comes at a cost for couriers. Earlier this month, Australia Post announced it would start charging as much as nine Australian dollars (US$6.47) to store consumers’ parcels.
While the delivery service comes at no extra charge during the trial phase, ICA and PostNord said they intend to pass on the cost to customers in the future.
At €249 (US$277), the Glue smart lock features a small electronic motor that is to be placed over the existing lock on the inside of the door. Users can hand out access passes, possibly limited to a particular time period, to visitors, family members or delivery people, through a smartphone application, while being updated on the exact position of the lock through built-in sensors. Glue isn’t the only smart-lock maker experimenting with third-party access solutions. August Home Inc. of the U.S. is also testing one-time-use digital-access codes for front doors.
Aside from to the lock’s sticker price, safety concerns might limit how many people will allow strangers into their homes, said Mr. Winkenbach of MIT.
Glue founders Diego Oliva and Carl Johan Grandinson said they intend to develop apps similar to those used by home- and car-sharing platforms to rate messengers. If the experiment is successful, Glue will offer its locking system for other types of delivery, including to businesses, they said.
Also in Sweden, Volvo Cars Corp. has launched tests to deliver goods to the trunks of Internet-connected autos. At PostNord, digital-business developer Kenneth Verlage says the in-fridge delivery service has an edge.
“Not everyone in Sweden has a Volvo, but all have a door,” he said.