To complement the market data and operational insights presented in GEL Proximity’s report, “Out-of-Home Delivery in Italy: Figures, Data and Insights on Italian Consumers,” we interviewed Francesco Tribuni, Industry & Data Insights Lead at Bloq.it, one of the leading companies in the European smart locker ecosystem.
The conversation explores the evolution of Out-of-Home delivery networks across Europe, the operational impact of lockers and PUDO (Pick-Up and Drop-Off) points, and the trends that are set to shape the future of last-mile logistics in the years ahead.
Looking at your professional journey in logistics, what developments have you observed in the last mile in recent years? And what has made this segment so central today?
A long journey that let me go through incredible transformations of my beloved industry. TIME & COSTS have always been the paramount: if it takes 1 minute and €1 to make a task, find a way to make it in 1 second and 1 cent. This has been the golden rule over the years.
Just in Time, ecommerce, supply chain disruptions, geopolitical crisis … logistics is more and more the key of the modern economy, supporting our daily life in good and bad times.
Based on your experience, how much have Out-Of-Home models improved last-mile operational efficiency compared to traditional delivery? And, concretely, what daily volumes can a driver handle today using PUDO and locker networks?
Either way coming from Parcel, Postal or 3PLs, all statements regarding 2025 OOH growth were showing a double digit growth of this segment, 3 or 4 times more than door 2 door volumes. It’s super clear that new volumes are going directly to OOH and D2D ones are shifting very fast.
Daily numbers are incredible: I remember a Mondial Relay post mentioning 685 parcels per day, a contact in Czechia saying that Locker delivery drivers have reached 800, and Marek Rozycki (LME) mentioning ~1.400/day in some areas. Try to compare these numbers with a D2D driver delivering 100 or 150 parcels per day, it’s economically unbeatable.
In the development of large-scale Out-Of-Home networks, what are the main technological and operational levers that determine efficiency and scalability?
The first rule, the foundation of a healthy network, is to secure volumes, whatever the delivery method. This principle will continue to be important everyday as the network expands and will see its costs growing.
Tech & Ops costs will vary depending on how the network will develop: more PUDOs or more Lockers? Capex vs Opex, automation vs large human intervention, ownership vs 3rd parties. It’s complex but they both lead to a better delivery model.
What are the most common challenges operators face in the development and management of a locker or PUDO network?
Lockers have to cope with permits, bureaucracy, each city has a different set of rules, low adoption at checkout, but on the other hand once the network start being part of the local environment it makes sense for both shippers and recipients to use Lockers as much as possible
PUDO’s setup needs a minimum set of requirements: a few square meters of space for parcels, a smartphone or a PDA, quick training from remote and easy software. But then opening hours will be a challenge, as well as their fixed costs too. Not blaming this choice, but it can’t be the foundation of a strong and long term sustainable OOH Network.
Which European countries are currently the most mature in the Out-Of-Home space, and is there still room for further evolution of OOH solutions? What dynamics are driving this growth?
Poland and Baltics are between 70% and 80%, Norway, Czech Republic: those countries are in the second phase of OOH where it is possible to imagine and build new revenue streams from Lockers as they’re now the main if not even the only way to ship & collect parcels. Only parcels?
Drivers? I think that some of those countries have benefited from very bold entrepreneurs who believed in such a change, and today are expanding to Western Europe. (Inpost, Vinted, Allegro & Alza.cz mainly)
In your opinion, how much does the fragmentation of networks and software impact our sector? Will it be possible to move toward a more integrated ecosystem capable of offering a seamless experience to end customers?
Business always comes first, standardization is already here in some forms (cabling, metal, EEA, safety …), “something else” will arrive sooner or later as a natural consequence of the maturity of the locker market.
Even if the first 2 lockers were deployed in 2001, things started to change with Inpost and a few others disrupting the market and COVID that made it clear how fragile the door 2 door delivery model.
In Europe, we are also seeing the first signs of multi-operator locker network sharing—for example, in Italy with DHL and Poste Italiane, in Germany with DPD and GLS, and soon in Poland with FedEx and InPost. What are your thoughts on this development?
When a market becomes so popular, so deeply integrated in our daily life like water and electricity, it becomes interesting to who sees an opportunity.
In the 60s there’re ~35–40 major independent automotive groups in Europe, today we’re at 5
Looking ahead, if you had to identify one trend set to redefine the last mile in the coming years, what would it be and why?
Robots. If Lockers have completely disrupted the Last Mile, robots will do even more. In major cities in China autonomous delivery vehicles are delivering millions of parcels per week, 24/7. Can you compete with that?
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