Although the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas see far more parcel deliveries — and therefore, more brazen from-the-stoop thefts, Prime Day’s limited 48-hour window creates a concentrated opening for “porch pirates” to make their move, said Brody Buhler, managing director of Accenture’s post and parcel industry group.
It’s hard to pin down exactly how many cardboard boxes are pilfered from plain sight around the invented summer buying spree, since customers can report thefts to one of three sources — the local police department, the retailer or the mail carrier — and those reports aren’t tallied centrally. But according to research from video-doorbell company
Ring, 19 percent of U.S. households had a package stolen at some point in 2017 with an average value of $140 per package. Nextdoor, a social-networking app for neighborhoods, says user comments about package theft spiked 85 percent between July 18 and 20 last year, the main delivery period for Prime Day packages.
“Criminals know about Prime Day — everyone has access to the internet these days,” said James Crecco, a police captain in Jersey City, New Jersey.
Of course, on-the-porch delivery isn’t a new phenomenon in the U.S., with Montgomery Ward launching its dry goods mail-order business while Ulysses S. Grant was president and Sears, Roebuck and Co.’s iconic catalog serving as America’s consumer bible for a century. But the proliferation of e-commerce brought delivery of goods — and chances to pilfer them — to a whole new level.
E-commerce accounted for more than 10 percent of all retail and food service sales in the first quarter, up from about 3 percent in 1999, according to the Commerce Department. Orders come in all year long, especially as grocery delivery expands, but they’re concentrated around big shopping events. During last year’s Prime Day, members bought more than 100 million products. Amazon has expanded this year’s extravaganza to 48 hours from 36 last year, with Coresight Research forecasting Amazon raking in $5.8bn globally in sales, up from an estimated $3.9bn in 2018. And that’s just the orders placed on Amazon itself. With rivals from Target Corp. to one-time mail-order king Sears itself leaning into the event, logistics providers will be extra busy in the coming days.
The growth of porch piracy has led a number of states, including California, South Carolina, Michigan and New Jersey, to propose bills for stricter penalties for package thieves. In Texas, the problem became so prevalent that state representatives formed a mail theft task force in 2017 and have since passed legislation that makes certain degrees of package theft a felony.
Amazon itself offers Amazon Lockers, keyless entry and click-and-collect “counters” to give buyers more ways to control how they receive their orders. Amazon Logistics also gives Prime members the opportunity to track the arrival of their packages in real time and to receive a photo of where the box was dropped, the company said. A spokeswoman declined to comment further or share company data on thefts.
Rising fear about package theft has helped usher in a new industry altogether:
porch security. Brad Ruffkess, a former Coca-Cola Co. employee, installed
security cameras at his Atlanta home and watched two boxes get stolen off of his doorstep within weeks of each other in 2017. Frustrated by the limited protection options available, Ruffkess founded
BoxLock Inc., a WiFi-connected lock that lets delivery drivers place packages in secure parcel boxes outside users’ homes.
BoxLock launched on Prime Day last year and sold out within hours of being posted to the Amazon website, he said. Other innovations that seek to keep porch pirates from their loot include
secure parcel mailboxes, in-home package drops,
Nest and
Ring cameras, and alternative delivery locations through programs like UPS My Choice.
There’s still a lot more innovation to come in package security as e-commerce continues to grow. When there are so many more packages on people’s doorsteps, we’ll see even more innovation in protecting deliveries.
This year’s Prime Day is expected to bring in $3.4 billion for Amazon, up from an estimated $2.4 billion a year ago, according to retail research firm Coresight Research. Despite the event’s rocky start, Amazon said demand continued to be high.
Amazon created Prime Day four years ago to mark the company’s 20th anniversary.
