Logistics Software Needed to Address Package Management Crisis

They’re relentless. 

Every day – and at every hour of every day – they arrive at your community. Wave after wave of them. They can push your associates to the breaking point. 

I’m talking about packages.

Not only has the volume of deliveries spiked as residents have become ever more reliant on online shopping, but the parcels are arriving in all shapes and sizes.

The onslaught can force associates to spend gobs of time dealing with delivery drivers and finding places to store the packages until residents can pick them up. Even at communities that have tried to ease their associates’ burden by installing package lockers, team members have to continually hound residents to come get their items.

Clearly, the complex package management issue has become more than just people and hardware can handle. Operators don’t so much have a package problem as they have a logistics problem. And so, a big part of the answer is logistics software.

A Growing Issue

If you’ve been closing your eyes and just hoping the package management problem will fade away, I hate to break it to you: You’re out of luck.

According to eMarketer, global e-commerce retail sales – which totaled $1.3 trillion in 2014 – are expected to reach $4.9 trillion in 2021. That would be a jump of 265 percent.

In the U.S., forecasts call for holiday online retail sales to grow more than 14 percent from last year. Cyber Monday alone will see $9.4 billion in online sales, a jump of nearly 19 percent when compared with 2018, Adobe Analytics says.

Faced with an issue that is only going to swell in size in the coming years, apartment operators need to realize that a complex problem requires a sophisticated solution.

At the heart of any such solution should be logistics software. This software can use artificial intelligence, computer vision and advanced sensors to move packages quickly in and out of a storage area.

It can create a system and an environment in which drivers are able to easily drop off their packages on shelving and residents receive quick notification about their items being available. The storage area can be made available to residents 24/7, which promotes quick pick-up, and even enables them to ship packages out (a huge resident service value-add). One of the issues sometimes slowing resident pick-up is the fact that residents can’t get their items from the leasing office during regular business hours. 

A logistics-software solution can provide drivers, residents and associates with the experiences they desire. Plus, by ensuring the rapid movement of parcels in and out of a storage facility, this kind of solution creates density and mitigates the need to expand a storage area.

An effective package management technology has the added – and critical – benefit of dramatically reducing the time and effort onsite associates have to devote to deliveries and pick-ups. This allows them to focus on boosting NOI by signing new leases and providing a level of customer service that motivate current residents to renew their leases. 

When it comes to packages, operators have to realize they have a true logistics problem on their hands. Throwing more people and hardware at the issue isn’t the answer. The time has come to bring software into the mix.