Multifamily

Secure, Convenient, Essential: Why Parcel Lockers Are a Must-Have Amenity for Multifamily Communities

Written by: Parcel Pending

6 Min Read

Published: July 24, 2024

Updated: November 14, 2024

Multifamily communities are a popular choice for college students, people moving to a new city, those saving to buy a home, and individuals downsizing. With a wide variety of properties available, prospective residents have their own checklists and non-negotiable items the property must meet in order to be selected.

While affordability remains top of mind for many, choosing a location with the amenities that match their personal needs takes center-stage. Once residents choose your property, you want to ensure they stay for the long term, as renewing a lease is less expensive than finding a new resident. This is why it is crucial to integrate the amenities residents seek, a requirement of not just millennials and Gen Zers but also of empty-nesters, retirees, and anyone who rents by choice or necessity.

While the list of offered amenities can vary from concierge services and gyms to rooftop lounges and outdoor pet areas, there is one amenity that residents value the most: Smart parcel lockers. Package lockers are a key solution for properties, creating an automated, self-service delivery process for residents and solving two key challenges: facilitating property deliveries and eliminating delivery theft.

Below, we explore the challenges presented by increased package deliveries, why parcel lockers are the best amenity for your property, and why Parcel Pending by Quadient’s smart lockers provide the best experience for both residents and the community overall.

Growing deliveries to properties

The popularity of e-commerce has not waned, with 55.6% of US consumers preferring to shop online, equating to 80% of the population. Tied to these numbers are millennials, also known as the “Generation of Renters,” who are also the largest group of online shoppers, at 41.8 million between the ages of 25 and 34.

Like homeowners, multifamily residents want packages and mail delivered safely and conveniently to their homes. At-home delivery is particularly popular for those who work from home or follow a hybrid work schedule. As of 2023, 12.7% of full-time employees work from home, while 28.2% work within a hybrid model, indicating that demand for at-home delivery remains strong.

In the US, consumers place orders at different intervals, with 22% shopping once a week, 27% shopping once every two weeks, and 28% shopping once a month. Thanks to the increased convenience, direct home delivery is the primary reason they shop online.

Given the popularity of multifamily homes and the diverse makeup of residents, we can assume that many of those online purchases are delivered to lobbies and mailrooms, which puts this unwelcome burden on property management.

The challenge of increased at-home deliveries

The growth in at-home deliveries presents a challenge for many properties. The rise in deliveries also comes with the challenge of combatting package theft, creating an additional responsibility for property management, who are now tasked with both receiving and safeguarding resident packages.

In the US, delivery theft continues to climb, with an estimated 119 million incidents in 2023. According to a survey conducted by SafeWise, a website that contextualizes national crime and safety trends, 75% of survey respondents who have ever been a victim of package theft had a delivery stolen in the past 12 months. Four in ten people who had a package stolen over the year experienced it more than once, with 71% of all packages stolen being valued at $100 or less; when aggregated, this could add up to an estimated $6 billion in losses.

Even if community management is responsible for package distribution, items can be lost or stolen because there are one or more extra steps between the delivering carrier and the recipient. Any time packages are left unattended, visitors, other residents, or opportunistic thieves may pilfer them.

Parcel lockers deliver MORE to your community

Tackling increased resident deliveries has become an overwhelming task, which is why smart parcel lockers are the best solution to address this challenge. Parcel lockers create a 24/7 self-service, secure option for residents. In fact, in a recent National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC)/Grace Hill Renter Preferences survey, they found that 67% of respondents prefer an on-site, self-service pickup option (e.g. lockers, package room), with 70% preferring a self-service package locker option. With this in mind, parcel lockers are the one amenity your residents cannot afford to be without.

Parcel lockers offer a cost-effective package management solution for property management and a convenient, automated experience for residents. Rather than requiring a resident to collect their package from the community mailroom or schedule a secondary delivery, carriers can deliver directly to the lockers, providing residents with an on-demand, self-service offering within three simple steps:

Residents receive an automatic alert via email, text message, or mobile app once their package has been delivered
The resident enters their one-time PIN or scans their unique barcode, and the door opens
Residents collect their package and close the door, allowing a new order to be placed inside the locker. Parcel Pending by Quadient offers an optional feature for residents to receive multiple deliveries from the same carrier in one locker, making receiving packages even easier.

The power of parcel lockers can extend beyond traditional package management, providing versatile solutions for various property activities, including:

Key distribution
Document retrieval and collection
Distribution of items for property maintenance
Dedicated reserved zones for property use or on-site service deliveries

Parcel Pending by Quadient’s locker solutions serve the greatest number of residents and property staff. Our resident support includes 100% deliverability with automated registration, consolidated deliveries for the same recipient, and easy registration and moving processes for residents. Property management support includes white glove installation, enhanced reporting and analysis tools, and dedicated locker zoning for property use.

Why parcel lockers deliver MORE than offsite delivery services

Although other delivery options like off-site services exist, they don’t measure up to parcel lockers, often highlighting significant shortcomings in the process. These services cause more problems than they solve for properties and residents, with critical drawbacks including:

Heightened inconvenience for residents
Increased rate of lost packages
More porch pirating
Limited customer service
Lower lease renewals

When choosing an off-site delivery service provider, the challenges often outweigh the pros. This is why parcel lockers are the best choice when looking for new delivery options for your community.

Parcel Pending by Quadient: The best choice to deliver MORE to your residents

Parcel Pending by Quadient parcel lockers provide a multitude of benefits to multifamily communities, including:

MORE operational efficiency: Enable staff to focus on high-value tasks as deliveries are made directly to the lockers, removing the need for intervention or support by a staff member – saving time and cutting operational costs.

MORE security: A robust steel design ensures that all packages are kept safe, eliminating the threat of lost or stolen packages.

MORE resident convenience: Provide easy, on-demand access to packages for your residents – no delivery scheduling required. Auto-resident registration provides 100% deliverability.

MORE use cases: Distribute keys and leasing documents or grant one-time access to lockers for non-residents, such as maintenance personnel, pet walkers, or self-guided tours.

MORE insights: Receive real-time insights and alerts on locker system performance with our business intelligence tools and online data analytics portal.

MORE automation tools: Increase efficiency with carrier-agnostic solutions that feature a fast-loading mode to expedite delivery. Plus, our Consolidated Box feature enables multiple deliveries for a single resident to be placed in one locker, maximizing available locker space.

Deliver MORE to your residents

To attract new residents and retain current ones, implementing highly valued amenities is the key to setting your property apart, especially as competition becomes more intense. While not every amenity will attract all potential residents, parcel lockers are a universal and widely used favorite.