Finland’s postal operator Posti plans to grow its locker network to 2,000 this summer and have 4,000 by 2022.
Posti says 85% of Finns will have a parcel locker within 1km of their home, and its retail network of pickup points will grow to 3,000 by the end of the year.
It is increasing the use of smart technology for parcel lockers, with new lock technology coming to the first 200 white Posti lockers this summer.
Heiko Laubach, head of retail network at Posti, said, “We want to introduce more ways to use parcel lockers and use data to develop our back-end systems, which help improve the customer experience. For example, customers will in the future be able to open a locker using the OmaPosti app on their phone.”
Parcel volumes have surged during the COVID-19 pandemic, and Posti has added temporary parcel pickup points usually only used at Christmas to cope with demand.
Due to the demand, parcels cannot always be sent to the pickup point selected by the customer.
Laubach said, “The major expansion of the Parcel Locker network as well as the expansion of existing popular Parcel Lockers are examples of the measures we are taking to improve the situation.”