Mark Bouris and James Packer are launching a smart locker parcel delivery system in direct competition with Australia Post, but Bouris says there is room in the market for both.
The network called ADAM (Automated Delivery Asset Manager) will soon be installed at 50 sites across Australia in a deal between TZ Limited, chaired by Bouris, and eCommerce delivery company Temando, which is backed by Packer’s private investment company Ellerston Capital.
ADAM will enable shoppers to pick up their online purchases at a time and location of their preference and aims to eliminate the hassle of missed deliveries when shoppers are not home.
When goods are ordered online, shoppers will be able to select the option to have their items delivered to ADAM. When the package is delivered the shopper is alerted by an email or SMS which includes a unique PIN code or barcode to pick up the parcel.
The system will be rolled out from January 2013, starting with locations including office buildings owned and managed by GPT Group in the Sydney CBD.
Other locations for the 50 sites will include corporate buildings, shopping centres, petrol stations, business parks and convenience stores.
Bouris told SmartCompany he spotted an opportunity as a result of the “massive growth” in online buying and the high failure rate of delivery to people’s homes.
“Depots are a great alternative and there are not depot competitors out there with any volume,” he says.
“We are able to take anybody on at our own pace and still have a significant share of market – nobody has a big footprint yet.”
Bouris says there is further opportunity as some businesses are moving towards no longer accepting delivery of personal packages.
“We do this in the States now and have some of the world’s biggest companies which use our mail room solution. Instead of having a mail room, you use the locker room: this works particularly well in hot desk environments where you don’t know where somebody can be sitting from day to day.”
Bouris says the launch represents a turnaround for TZ after it lost the Australia Post contract earlier this year.
“We received great comfort about our technology when we won a deal with Singapore Post.
“We were a bit gun shy after [Australia Post] and wondered whether we were still in the game, but we got a lot of confidence out of Singapore Post and so we decided to prosecute our own position since we weren’t invited to the table with anyone.”
He says there is room in the market for ADAM alongside the parcel delivery lockers already launched by Toll and Australia Post this year.
“It’s a real estate game about who has got the depots. Toll does not have technology solution, it is delivering to newsagents, but as this gets more prevalent the places things get delivered to will get too busy,” Bouris says.
“The technology solution that we have actually resolves that problem I don’t see Toll as a competitor; I see they will adjunct what we are doing.”
Bouris says Australia Post is a competitor but as nobody but Australia Post can deliver to its lockers he says there is room for an “agnostic” competitor which any delivery company can use.
“That is the opportunity to be the agnostic receiving agent in an electronic sense – we don’t care who or when delivers or what,” he says.
“We are not going to become a problem for Australia Post. There is enough growth in the market for both of us.”
Bouris also says locker delivery systems are still relevant despite the launch of tighter delivery times such as the three-hour delivery by WantItNow.
“There is going to be a whole suite of ways for things to be delivered – if you want three-hour delivery you will pay for that – but there is going to be a whole middle piece of online customer who does not want to pay for that and just wants to pick up at their convenience,” he says.
“Nobody knows what the numbers will be, time will tell, but this is going to be one of the solutions. It is not a matter of who wins, they are all going to survive, we are just making sure we are part of that percentage.”
Cara Waters is the editor of SmartCompany. Cara was previously a senior reporter at the Financial Times website FT Adviser in London and has also worked for The Sunday Times.
