E-Commerce's Explosive, Exponential Trajectory Mirrored By Proportional Package Volume Increases

With e-commerce purchases at an all-time high, accounting for 8.8% of all U.S. consumer spending, quadruple 2.2% in 2004, package volume has increased exponentially.

This has necessitated tremendous investments in infrastructure and sophisticated systems to handle the receipt, tracking and delivery of these packages. Relentless double-digit growth in e-commerce has put pressure on warehouse workers, postal service pros and property managers.

Many in multifamily are familiar with how this shift is causing their expenses to rise dramatically due to an increased need for on-site staffing to handle the burden, and also causing headaches, with tenants hounding staff for info about their shipments

According to The Postal Solutions Cos CEO Craig Meddin, Amazon sold over 54 million items (almost 38,000/minute) on Cyber Monday in 2016. Last year, Amazon did $107B in revenue, most of which came from items purchased with Amazon Prime and committed to be delivered in 48 hours or less, a tremendous logistical feat.

"In the package management industry we know that the 'last mile' is the most expensive portion of the delivery,” Meddin said.

“In the case of multifamily apartments, where leasing offices are receiving deliveries for residents in bulk, that 'last mile' becomes the burden of apartment management.”

Apartment management firms and property owners are scrambling for a solution, and Meddin believes he has just the thing, a new company that focuses on the full spectrum of package management solutions; from package logging software, to secure-access package storage rooms, to package lockers, all in one stop — Locker Solutions.

With nearly two decades in the multifamily mail and package delivery management space, Meddin has formed Locker Solutions and built a national sales team with a robust, talented and experienced group of well-known multifamily apartment industry sales pros.

Kristen Hubert has over 15 years of experience; she previously managed the Atlanta sales team for Apartment Finder. She also serves as an ambassador in the Atlanta Apartment Association. She’s now Locker Solutions’ national sales director, managing the team’s solutions of Luxer One electronic package lockers (above), Luxer One package storage rooms and Logware package logging software PackageLog.

The team also added 17-year For Rent and ForRent.com veteran Staci Skufca, who oversees Florida; Heather Robinson, who has over 20 years' experience with national multifamily sales, now focusing on the West Coast; Shannon Cleveland, who spent two decades at Apartment Guide and Apartment Finder, based in Dallas; and 10-year conventional and student housing regional property manager Monique Adair, who’ll spearhead the group’s PackageLog software sales.

“With packages growing 20% YOY, I'm excited to expand our multifamily sales team at Locker Solutions,” Hubert said.

“Having veterans in the industry who can relate to what our property management staff goes through day in and day out is critical to our success.”

Locker Solutions has seen exponential monthly growth since its formation in early 2016 and intends to continue to grow the sales team in major markets this year.

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