Amazon Is Rolling Out Keypad-Based Delivery Lockers to 7-Eleven and Rite-Aid Stores

Rite-Aid stores in New York City recently installed banks of lockers built around a touchscreen that reads “Amazon Locker.” The lockers will apparently enable customers to have purchases shipped to a nearby location for pickup if they can’t easily get packages at home or at work.

When we tapped the touch screen of a display at the Rite-Aid at 13th Street and 6th Avenue in Manhattan, we were instructed to punch in a four-digit code on a keypad beneath the screen. There was no signage or other information to explain the purpose of the lockers or the service, and when we attempted to place an order at Amazon.com to have it shipped to that location, we saw no such shipping option at Amazon’s check-out section.

The locker system resembles a service test-marketed by a company called zBox, which launched a “smart home-delivery appliance” service in 2000. That service offered consumers a 2-foot locked cube for placement outside the home that was equipped with a proprietary access system and keypad. Shoppers could direct merchants to send packages through the zBox service, and packages delivered by that method had a unique access code on the shipping label that delivery drivers punched into the keypad on the zBox to unlock the box and deposit goods. The service, which carried an introductory monthly fee of $5, didn’t gain enough traction and zBox never went nationwide. The company sold the technology to Whirlpool in 2001.

At least two Rite-Aid stores in New York are displaying the Amazon delivery system. Forty numbered lockers, all the same width, and varying in height, could accommodate small, medium and somewhat large-size packages. Amazon didn’t respond to our questions regarding the purpose of the lockers, who can access them, how they work or which other chains it will work with on the locker program, which hasn’t been formally announced.

Rite-Aid joins 7-Eleven, which apparently became the first partner for the Amazon locker service earlier this month when a 7-Eleven store in Amazon’s home base, Seattle, installed a system. Tablet news outlet The Daily quoted an unnamed source as saying the boxes would act as a “P.O. box for Amazon purchases.” The source told The Daily that Amazon is in early testing stages of the program and if it’s successful, lockers could be in place at 7-Elevens across the country by summer 2012.

A spokesman for Rite-Aid was unaware of the Amazon program when we contacted him Monday. We sent him a photo of the lockers by email along with a list of questions regarding the partnership. The spokesman didn’t respond by deadline.