7 December 2018 was an important day for our Parcel Perform team, merchants and end-consumers in Singapore!

Along with established parcel locker providers such as Singapore Post, blu and participating merchants like Lazada, the Locker Alliance was launched; an initiative by the Singapore Government and IMDA to ease e-commerce logistics experience for all stakeholders involved.

Following our appointment by IMDA to develop the initiative’s Interoperability Platform, our team has worked tirelessly to build the best infrastructure for a collective parcel locker system - allowing different locker operators, end-consumers and merchant partners to use the network seamlessly.

The benefits of this digital logistics platform are clear; it allows industry players to improve last mile deliverability, reduce costs and enhance the end-consumer customer experience across Singapore.

Speaking at the launch, Guest of Honour Dr. Janil Puthucheary, Senior Minister of State, Ministry of Communications and Information lauded the initiative as a strong public-private partnership to solve last mile challenges in Singapore.

What does the Locker Alliance mean for Singaporean consumers?

This pilot will be first rolled out to the 78,000 residents in Punggol and Bukit Panjang. Lockers were installed across more than 60 locations in the two towns and are located within 250m of all HDB blocks. Consumers are understandably excited - they can now  access their deliveries at all hours of the day, making the end-of-year peak shopping season less stressful.

Residents can now collect their purchases conveniently from a locker station near their homes or along the Punggol and Bukit Panjang MRT stations at any time. This is possible even if parcels come from different online vendors and merchants.

Speaking on the benefits of the Locker Alliance for Singapore, IMDA CEO Tan Kiat How said logistics service providers can potentially see a 50 percent reduction in distance traveled by their drivers, yet see a five-fold improvement in delivery efficiency.

This is just the first steps in a planned regional locker network:

The Punggol and Bukit Panjang pilot is just the first steps in a planned development of a regional locker network. IMDA also plans to expand the Locker Alliance to other countries in ASEAN - with locker operators like Thailand's Box24, Hong Kong's Pakpobox and Indonesia's Popbox Asia to explore future developments.

Given the exciting state of affairs in Southeast Asia’s web economy , the model could possibly open up e-commerce business opportunities for other businesses and logistics players around the region and we can’t wait to see what’s in store for Singapore and the region’s e-commerce infrastructure.

Interested to learn more about the Locker Alliance?

If you’re in Singapore, the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) is holding an exhibition on urban logistics from 4 December 2018 to 25 January 2019. Discover the future of urban logistics and explore the various innovations that the Singapore Government has in store to move goods effectively at The URA Centre, Level 1 Atrium.

Alternatively, feel free to connect with our Parcel Perform team Ilham, Arne and Dana or visit the Locker Alliance website for more information.