How to keep up with delivery management on Prime Day

There is a special joy that receiving ‘real’ mail (i.e. not a bill or junk mail) sparks. If you live in an area where packages delivered directly to your home is an inconvenience (or just not a good idea––the porch pirate phenomenon is an unfortunate reality for many), the option to have purchases delivered to work is enticing. 

One of the ultimate opportunities to improve your ‘real’ mail odds, Amazon Prime Day 2019 kicks off at midnight on Monday, July 15 and ends on Tuesday, July 16––technically two days, and the longest yet at 48 hours. Last year, deliveries were nearly 30% higher on the Thursday following Prime Day (and just in time for 2-day shipping) compared to other Thursdays in July. 

There are plenty of buyer’s guides that anticipate the hottest Prime Day deals, but what happens once all of that stuff actually arrives to your office? Deep breaths––you got this! Here's why you should make sure your workplace delivery management strategy is up to the task.

Employees are increasingly having packages delivered to their workplace

With the steady growth of e-commerce, ability to order quickly from our mobile devices from anywhere (shopping while commuting? Yes, that’s a thing) and super fast shipping, it’s no wonder more and more employees get their packages delivered to their places of work. This is an especially common practice in cities and more urban areas, where delivery security is a serious concern. 

While this presents an ideal situation for employees, all of these workplace deliveries can create quite the burden for office managers and front desk teams typically tasked with delivery management. This delivery management is time-consuming, and includes:

• Package intake
• Storage and space maintenance
• Making sure packages get to the people that ordered them 
• Reminding employees to pick up their deliveries

Your workforce isn’t picking up deliveries as fast as they order them

Having packages delivered to your workplace presents another set of challenges, namely when it comes to the collection phase. You might think expedited shipping options mean people want their ordered items delivered, and in their possession, as quickly as possible. Surprisingly, the data shows that package pick-up at work isn’t as fast. 

In fact, one-third of delivery recipients wait two or more days to pick up their items. This can result in package pileup in your workplace mailroom, particularly around Prime Day and other high-volume delivery events. 

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Be prepared: Delivery management for Prime Day and beyond

While there was a marked spike in deliveries around Prime Day last year, the holiday shopping season causes an even larger increase in office deliveries. Delivery volume following Cyber Monday 2018, for example, was nearly 400% higher than average levels. 

Prime Day is just one of many high-volume delivery events. Is your workplace prepared for the deluge of packages (and people) into your mailroom that is bound to occur during the holiday season? What if there was a much easier, digital way to manage deliveries?

With digital delivery management, employees are automatically notified of packages to retrieve their items faster. They can even mark off when they picked them up, eliminating the need for office managers to send constant reminders.

Bring it on, Prime Day.