Addressing the High Friction Points in the Locker Industry

The locker industry has been drastically underperforming. Why?

When my curiosity about smart lockers first arose, I could not stop asking myself... "why do we not see more smart lockers in our community?"

I saw smart lockers as a way to create frictionless transactions. Automating deliveries, asset rental, vending, luggage storage, and other services. However, I saw that there was way too much FRICTION in this frictionless product proposition.

These are the five points of HIGH FRICTION I continue to see today...

1) Complex and outdated hardware—When opening a smart locker control tower, you typically find a maze of ports and cables that will take you back to my childhood in the 1990s with RS232 serial ports. The outdated hardware creates friction when it comes to integrations, firmware updates, and manufacturing costs.

2) Lead Times & Customization—Many locker manufacturers tend to get in their way when customizing configurations is unnecessary. This adds to their already long lead times and increases project CAPEX. The lack of standardization by many manufacturers has created much-unneeded friction.

3) Poor User Experience - I have talked to many locker manufacturers that have built their own software. The iPhone was released in 2007, and we still are a kiosk-first industry. Many of these kiosk interfaces and management software look like they were designed in 1995. The majority of the locker industry has yet to see that beautiful design truly matters.

4) Restricted Software Capabilities & Technical Debt - I am still amazed at how many lockers are on-premise and not connected to the cloud. Meeting with locker software providers, the vast majority built a product for their first few customers. This short-term outlook quickly equals technical debt and prohibits them from creating software products for a larger market. This restricts their software to a limited number of flows and applications. Every new sale means more technical customization and work for their small team.

5) Installation and Set-up - The installation and set-up failures are a product of issues 1-4. I have talked to companies that will send one team to unload, level, and set the lockers into place. Only to send a second team who will hook up, connect, and test everything from an IT side. This results in the customer spending thousands of dollars and multiple days to get a locker online.

The industry needs to focus on reducing friction for locker owners and end users. I continue to see first-hand companies in a variety of industries and sectors using lockers to solve efficiency problems. The companies that win in this industry will be focused on creating beautiful and frictionless products and services.