Amazon Japan will begin installing Amazon Locker pickup kiosks in Japanese retail outlets and train stations this year, a Nikkei Asian Review report said.
The e-tailer is partnering with the FamilyMart convenience store chain, supermarket operator Fuji Citio and Odakyu Electric Railway. The lockers will appear in dozens of retail outlets and train
stations by the end of this year, mostly in the greater Tokyo area.

Amazon Japan will expand the service to 500 to 1,000 locations nationwide in the next few years, aiming to combat the ills plaguing the parcel delivery industry in Japan where delivery lockers of
any kind have sofas had marginal penetration. In 2017, less than 1% of people had used such terminals to pick up deliveries, a government survey found.

Much more lockers are to come
Ground transport providers, said the Nikkei report, are employing delivery lockers as a solution to the problem. Industry leader Yamato Transport, in partnership with other companies,
installed lockers at roughly 4,300 locations in major cities as of June.
Plans call for expanding the network to 5,000 locations by the end of March next year. Ground shippers Sagawa Express and DHL Japan use the same lockers, as does Japan Post Holdings.

in India…
Amazon’s locker plans at train stations in Japan follow a similar set up in India where earlier this month, the company announced a partnership with Indian Railways to place pickup kiosks in four
of the busiest local train stations across Mumbai – the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CSTM), Thane, Dadar, and Kalyan. Customers can select these kiosks as a pickup location on the checkout page
while shopping on Amazon.in. And Amazon’s rival Flipkart this month announced it has linked up with 27,000 kirana stores across 700 cities to strengthen its last-mile delivery.

… as well as in Europe
Amazon has been putting lockers in supermarkets, post offices and transport hubs across Europe since 2011. It said it plans to install 1,000 such lockers in France last year. In June this year,
the company set up physical kiosks in a handful of railway stations across London to sell a rotating selection of items at discounted prices. These will also double up as pickup points.

Nol van Fenema