Convenience store

A new locker system from Amazon sends your deliveries to 7-Eleven

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BY MATT HICKEY FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 2011

You’re at work and your cellphone rings. It’s the delivery guy and he has your Amazon purchase ready to be dropped off. (Yes, the new shower curtain!) But you’re chained to your desk and can’t get home to sign for it. And forget about having it sent to the office — if the mailroom doesn’t lose it, the package will be undoubtedly delivered on a weekend when you’re not around. First World problems!

But nestled in the back of a 7-Eleven store in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood is a prototype delivery locker from Amazon that may solve this nightmare scenario.

According to a source with knowledge of the project, the idea is simple: these nondescript boxes will be in 7-Eleven stores across the country and act as a sort of P.O. box for Amazon purchases. Once a customer makes a buy on Amazon’s website he can select a 7-Eleven close to work, or on the way home and have the package dropped off there.

When the package is actually delivered, the customer receives an email notification along with a bar code to his smartphone and heads to the 7-Eleven. There he’ll stand in front of the locker system, which looks like the offspring between an ATM machine and a safety deposit box. The machine will scan the bar code on his handset to receive a PIN number. He’ll punch that PIN number and retrieve the package.

The source told The Daily that Amazon is currently in early testing stages of the system. If it is successful, the lockers could be in place at 7-Elevens across the U.S. by next summer.

Amazon had no comment about the locker system.

Amazon's 7-Eleven lockers are very real, very gray, slated for Friday activation

By Amar Toor  posted Sep 6th 2011 at 10:18AM

After an arduous expedition that must've lasted hours, an intrepid frontiersman in the Seattle area has finally unearthed the Holy Grail of convenience store cubbies -- Amazon's elusive delivery locker, at 7-Eleven. GeekWire's John Cook discovered the prototype lockers at a 7-Eleven in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood, where store clerks told him that the system wouldn't be activated until Friday. According to Cook's description, the setup consists of about 40 different sized containers, centered around a keypad and monitor (neither of which was illuminated during his visit). All told, the array of P.O. Box-style cabinets stands about seven feet tall and is completely devoid of Amazon branding. The in-store pick-up program may roll out of a nationwide basis next summer, but you can check out a photographic sneak preview at the source link, below.