University of South Carolina
USC Cuts Pickup Lines and Reclaims Staff Time with Parcel Pending Smart Lockers
The University of South Carolina’s flagship Columbia campus serves more than 40,000 students. When a renovation cut the campus store from 20,000 square feet to 5,000, course materials no longer fit on the shelves and pickup operations buckled under demand. After deploying Parcel Pending by Quadient smart lockers, USC eliminated first-week wait times and processed more than 40,000 parcels in the lockers’ first academic year of operation.
A Shrinking Store, A Growing Line
When renovations cut the available campus store space from 20,000 square feet to 5,000, course materials could no longer fit on the shelves. The university shifted to a pre-order model fulfilled from an off-campus warehouse, which solved the space problem but tied every student pickup to store hours. During the first week of classes, lines stretched through the store and wait times reached up to an hour.
Joseph J. Fortune, USC’s Director of Business Affairs, was watching the pickup problem closely when he saw a news story about students at another university waiting in line for hours in the heat. “This is not a headline we want for South Carolina,” Fortune said. With the next fall semester approaching, the team began evaluating solutions.
A Partner USC Already Trusted
USC was already a Quadient customer through its postal and passport services, and the postal team recommended Parcel Pending lockers as a fit for the campus store. Chavis McDonald, USC’s Director of Customer Experience and Change Management, had personally used Parcel Pending lockers as a Lowe’s customer for years and considered the technology proven.
As the team evaluated vendors, Parcel Pending stood out for working within budget constraints and staying responsive on a tight implementation schedule. “Any concern that we had was really listened to and taken into account in terms of the experience we were trying to create for our campus,” Fortune said.
The deployment brought together IT, facilities, Quadient’s team, and the campus architect to redesign the temporary store space. Parcel Pending installed 23 lockers across three campus locations on schedule, each wrapped in custom USC Gamecock spirit designs that now double as photo backdrops for students.
From Hour-Long Lines to Near-Zero Waits
The shift to lockers reshaped first-week operations. Wait times that had previously stretched to an hour dropped to near zero, and students could pick up their pre-ordered course materials around their own schedules. In the lockers’ first academic year of operation, USC’s campus store and postal service teams together processed more than 40,000 parcels.
of pickups happen outside standard 9-to-5 business hours.
Fortune, who also teaches a business school course at USC, recalled one student who worried about missing a Monday assignment deadline because he’d be traveling over the weekend. Fortune told him he could scan into the Byrnes lobby on Sunday night and grab his textbook from the locker. The student turned the assignment in on time.
For staff, work that previously bottlenecked the counter moved to the lockers, freeing the campus store team to focus on customer-facing service. McDonald reported a visible improvement in inventory quality and shelf organization on the retail floor.
Student response has been strong, with roughly 90% of a recent campus cohort reporting they’ve used the lockers and praising the speed and ease of use.
Expanding Beyond the Campus Store
The success has been clear enough that USC plans to keep the lockers in service permanently, even after the campus store returns to its full 20,000-square-foot footprint. Colleagues across campus are already asking how to plug into the locker ecosystem.
Health services and pharmacy teams are exploring lockers for over-the-counter and prescription drop-offs, while game day apparel at Williams-Brice Stadium is a likely next deployment, with a transition to Nike apparel expected to drive significant volume. Longer term, the USC team is considering a “buy online, pick up anywhere” model that could expand into technology lending and returns, and exploring less transactional uses like delivering surprise packages to students on birthdays or for academic milestones.
About Parcel Pending by Quadient
Quadient is the leading provider of innovative parcel management solutions for higher education institutions worldwide, designed to make parcel deliveries and returns easy and intuitive for everyone. With more than 100 years of innovation supporting our clients’ mail and parcel needs, Parcel Pending by Quadient solutions ensure secure, convenient student parcel deliveries and on-campus asset exchanges.