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As I wrote in my previous article – average APM size in the county I reside is 158 compartments.
How much volume can such an APM realistically deliver? Let’s first look at capacity on a single compartment level throughout a month (30 calendar days) with an average number of working days of 26 (parcel machines are operated 6 days a week in the Baltics). If a courier delivers a parcel into the subject compartment and assuming a customer collects it the same day, we will have 26 parcels going through a single compartment in a month:
APMs are filled 6 days a week leading into total monthly parcels per APM with 158 compartments of 4108, annually 49’296. This scenario assumes that every compartment will handle 1 parcel per day. Are there any options to increase that number? Absolutely! Besides last mile delivery there is also first mile (B2B/B2C) and returns(C2B). Additionally, C2C parcel volume corresponds to around ⅓ of all the APM deliveries. Combining that volume and increasing courier visits to APM to 3 times per day it is possible to increase the throughput to the level where average parcel dwell time (how long a parcel stays in the compartment) is less than 24h. Based on the Estonian example, on average a parcel is being picked up by the customer within 16 hours (dwell-time based on Omniva experience described in articles below). However, 16 hours is only a ballpark average figure and in reality, dwell times significantly vary so that operators fill the APM’s up to 3 times per day with significant drop density so that extra stops at APM make a lot of sense. Average daily drop amount is around 160-200 parcels per APM location, which is a summary of 3 courier visits to APM location.
To give you an idea of dwell times from Hivebox in China, who is by far the largest APM operator with around 300’000 APM’s installation:
As per info from Tommy Xu (Head of international business Hive Box) 83% of the parcels are taken out from APM’s within an impressive 6-8 hours resulting in 19 million of parcels delivered on average per day during the fortnight prior to 11.11 (Black Friday in China). In the case of Hive Box, the customers can store their parcels for free for 18 hours, thereafter a fee of approximately 7 Euro cents will apply. Assuming that European consumers adopt similar behaviour, our parcel throughput would double to 100’000 per APM (158 compartments).
However, such adoption is only possible, with a pricing model (“motivational”), which forces customers to quickly pick their parcels up, and Hive Box has capitalised very well on that.
To conclude – in the Baltics a typical APM (158 compartments) delivers around 50’000 parcels per annum. In China, 100’000. There are many ways (incentive schemes, pricing logic) and services to improve the APM throughput. Smart operators have endless opportunities making APM delivery channel a successful business case.
Next article regarding the APM economy I will be concentrating on the cost of running an APM.
Thank you for reading and please share your comments.
References:
https://postandparcel.info/150970/features/e-commerce-features/creating-the-extraordinary/
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