Deliver a Seamless Start to Spring Semester with Smart Lockers

This month marks the start of a new year and a new semester. But students’ return to campus also means a back-to-school package onslaught. By installing smart lockers, you can ensure a smoother experience when students return to campus each semester.

This blog details how colleges and universities across the country are leveraging smart lockers to improve efficiency in mailrooms, bookstores, libraries, dining rooms, and more – both for the start of the semester and throughout the year.

MORE Efficient Mailroom Operations

Back-to-school season always brings an influx of packages, and the spring semester is no exception. This poses a significant challenge for mail services staff, as the staffing crunch in campus mailrooms is real and growing. A recent Spaces4Learning survey found that 36% of higher education operations professionals identified “too few staff” as their biggest challenge in managing mail and packages.¹ What’s more concerning? While 72% of respondents expect package volumes to continue rising, they don’t plan to hire additional personnel to handle the increased workload.

Steve Lampedusa, Director of Mail Services and Copy at the University at Albany, has witnessed firsthand how dramatic this volume growth has become. “To give you context, when I first started this job [in 2016], we were looking at 70,000 packages a year,” Lampedusa shared. “Last year, we surpassed 350,000 packages—and we’re probably going to surpass that number this year.”

UAlbany’s mail services operation serves 15,000 students and 5,000 faculty and staff members. To support its mailroom operations, the school installed lockers in 2021; staff now deliver 1,200-1,500 packages/day. “One day we were able to distribute 2,000 packages in one day. And that was because [the lockers] were repurposed a couple of times. That’s the record.”

The success of the mailroom lockers triggered a campus-wide ripple effect. The UAlbany library has also adopted its own system, eliminating the need for 2-3 additional full-time workers.

MORE Bookstore Revenue

As students start to receive textbook and supply lists for their spring classes, bookstores too will experience a surge in traffic. By strategically installing and leveraging smart lockers, bookstores can maximize revenue by having students walk through high-margin retail areas when picking up orders, leading to incremental purchases.

The convenience factor drives both satisfaction and repeat business. Smart lockers put students in control of their order pickup experience, eliminating lines and extending service hours. Students can collect orders on their own schedule with up to 24/7 access in many locations, and the process takes as little as 7 seconds. This seamless experience explains why 95% of locker users become repeat customers.

Valencia College in Florida discovered the transformative potential of smart lockers when the pandemic forced them to rethink their entire bookstore operation. Before implementing their “VC Vault” system, the college struggled with unsustainable shipping costs and unwieldy in-store pickup processes that buckled under sudden demand surges.

The smart locker solution revolutionized their operations. Valencia automated order pickup, eliminating the need for 20-30 additional workers per shift who had been managing curbside service. Campus Store Manager Frankie Ortiz captured the impact succinctly: “We didn’t have to deploy a small army to make sure that every student is prepared on that first day of class.”

Valencia’s success extended beyond the bookstore. Similar to UAlbany, Valencia also extended its lockers to the library. Now the college is integrating its food pantry into the network, demonstrating how smart lockers can evolve to meet diverse student needs across campus.

MORE Access to Dining Services

Today’s student population is shifting. More diverse and mature, as well as more likely to attend classes part-time while working or supporting family members, students may be experiencing more difficulty accessing food during “standard” service hours. However, where dining services and food pantries may not be able to match every student’s schedule, smart lockers can. They enable students to retrieve food from dining halls or food pantries at their convenience without the stigma often associated with food assistance programs.

For instance, when Bunker Hill Community College (BHCC) launched its DISH Food Pantry in September 2019, administrators recognized a critical challenge: traditional food pantry models might not reach all students in need. Some students felt uncomfortable visiting physical pantry locations during operating hours, where they might be seen by peers or faculty.

The solution came in April 2022 when BHCC installed three smart locker towers at the Charlestown campus, including two refrigerated units. These “DISH and Dash Lockers,” powered by Parcel Pending by Quadient, made BHCC the first college food pantry in the country to use refrigerated smart lockers for food distribution.

The impact has been substantial. In 2024 alone, the DISH program fulfilled 3,286 grocery orders and 35,809 Grab & Go visits, distributing more than 95,000 pounds of food.² Beyond the impressive numbers, the lockers provide something equally valuable: discreet access that alleviates the anxiety many students experience when seeking food support services. Students can retrieve nutritious meals and groceries on their own schedule without fear of judgment or stigma.

MORE Options to Meet Your Campus Needs

The applications for smart lockers extend far beyond package delivery. With Parcel Pending’s Campus Hub™, institutions can establish a comprehensive distribution network where smart lockers serve as secure exchange points for virtually any item. Ticket distribution, library books, move-in documents, keys, class materials, athletic equipment, IT devices, and more can all flow through the locker infrastructure.

New locker applications continue to emerge as departments discover creative solutions to their unique logistical challenges. Consider this example from the University at Albany: late one evening, the athletic director urgently needed an item for an early morning departure to an away game. Lampedusa secured the package in a locker for after-hours access. “First thing in the morning, like five in the morning, he was getting it and heading off to Villanova,” Lampedusa recalled. “So, you see a lot of different ways to utilize a locker besides just general student packages.”

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Whether it’s student packages, library materials, bookstore purchases, IT equipment, or emergency equipment retrieval, smart lockers can solve delivery logistics problems across your entire campus. Ready to start 2026 and the spring semester on the right foot? Contact a Parcel Pending representative today to lock in your campus smart locker solution.

Sources:

1. Spaces4Learning & Parcel Pending by Quadient. Campus Mailroom Operations: A Nexus of the Student Experience. www.parcelpending.com. May 31, 2024. https://www.parcelpending.com/en-us/resources/empower-your-campus-mailroom-meeting-the-evolving-needs-of-todays-students/
2. Bunker Hill Community College DISH Food Pantry. 2024 DISH Annual Report. www.bhcc.edu. n.d. https://www.bhcc.edu/media/03-documents/dishfoodpantry/Dish-Annual-Report.pdf