By Raeanne Raccagno
Staff Writer
The College added two Amazon lockers at the beginning of October to make the parcel pick-up process easier and prevent unclaimed packages.
To help fix previous problems with mailing, the College installed two Amazon lockers on campus which provide students and faculty with 24/7 access to retrieve their package from the lockers.
“I thought if we provided more convenient hours and locations for package pick up that it might benefit students,” said Sharon Blanton, vice president of operations.
When placing an order, the receiver will choose the “pickup” option at checkout and then choose either the “Deputy” locker located behind Cromwell Hall or the “Ulrich” locker located inside the lobby of the Administrative Services Building. ASB is accessible 24/7, but Campus Police needs to buzz students in after hours. The “Deputy” locker is outside Cromwell, obtainable from the parking lot.
Packages must be picked up within three days of delivery and will be returned back to Amazon if they are not.
Sitting and collecting dust on the counters of the Decker Hall mailroom are bins of Amazon packages that students have never picked up. Adding to that problem was Amazon drivers not dropping off containers at the correct location before the lockers were installed.
“[Decker Hall] has been the designated drop-off location for everything since 2020,” said Alex Schulz, the senior postal clerk at the College. “COVID protocol kind of changed things, so issues that came out of that were drivers going to incorrect pins that are on their GPS or just leaving them on the opposite side of this building.”
Schulz estimated that about 10% of mailroom package traffic came from Amazon orders beforehand.
The lockers are meant for smaller parcels. If an item is too large, then Amazon will not offer pickup as an option during the ordering process.
“The delivery drivers place the order right into a locker,” said Blanton. “The purchaser then receives a locker code via email. The purchaser then goes to the locker, enters the code and the appropriate locker door pops open. It’s super easy.”
Blanton started this project several months ago after she toured the mailroom last summer and was shocked at the amount of unclaimed packages.
The lockers were coincidentally established right before Amazon Prime Day for students to take advantage of.
Not only can students use this new feature, but so can the surrounding community. When checking out, those living in the nearby area also have the chance to select the lockers as a pickup location instead of it being delivered to their house.
After choosing pickup, Amazon states that the lockers are not in a public place and buyers must affirm they have access to the location before they can complete their purchase.
“So far so good,” Schulz said about the new program.
A problem the mailroom now faces is instructing a lot of drivers to where the lockers are located so they can place them in the lock boxes.
The lockers are fully operated by Amazon, who supplied the compartments for free, so none of the College’s resources have to be used. Amazon will start sending usage reports to Blanton and will notify the College if additional lockers are needed from the demand.
