Spring 2010

Within a year, at least half a dozen online retailers could be offering drop-off at ByBox box banks to consumers completely free. Not only would use of the box bank be free to the consumer, but the delivery itself would also be free to the retailer. ByBox would cover the entire cost.

This is the remarkable vision of ByBox chief executive Stuart Miller, who says the time has come for a radical new approach to promoting this form of unattended delivery service.

'Ten years ago we looked on carriers as our potential customers,' he says, 'then we turned our attention to retailers. But no one was ready to commit to the idea until it hit critical mass. It was a vicious circle.'

His new idea for breaking out of this circle is to form partnerships with selected retailers – only one per market sector – for whom ByBox would provide the free delivery and drop-off service. The offer might eventually be time-limited, but currently Miller is not even putting that constraint on it.

 

'Our partners would be able to offer a unique delivery proposition within their market, giving the concept a much higher profile, and others would feel obliged to follow suit on a paying basis. This would finally kick-start the consumer box bank market.'

ByBox runs its own nationwide carrier operation for its field service deliveries, and has a large network of box banks in place. Miller argues that the incremental cost of free delivery for a handful retail partners would be relatively easy to absorb.

How existing carriers would react to being undercut by a totally free delivery service is not clear, but as this one would be limited to consumers wanting a ByBox delivery, it might not cause too many waves, in the short term at least.