SYDNEY – As they prepare to do battle with Amazon and its home delivery service from late November, a number of shopping malls are beginning to offer lockers for online shoppers.

This follows recent research which has shown 48 per cent of shoppers collect parcels from flexible delivery locations because they are not home to receive the parcel, and 29 percent choose delivery collection points for the convenience.

Scentre Group and Stockland are two of many mall landlords that now offer lockers for Australian online shoppers, according to a recent Fairfax report. They have teamed up with CouriersPlease to provide lockers known as POPStations  that are said to enable shoppers to collect and also return goods across 31 major shopping centres.

The stations are said to be located in 22 Westfield shopping centres, and nine Stockland centres.

Online shoppers can direct their parcel delivery to a shopping centre POPStation if they will not be home to sign for it. They can also use the POPStations to send parcels, after booking and paying for their delivery online.

Australia Post – which has inked a deal with Amazon – has had lockers for some years and has organised with Woolworths to offer them at its supermarkets.