By Meredith Howard | Staff Writer
A new addition was recently added to the Bill Daniel Student Center (SUB)— as of yesterday, an Amazon Hub Locker is operational for students to pick up their online packages.
Baylor’s new Amazon locker is located just inside the SUB entrance closest to the bear habitat. Amazon lockers are “secure, self-service kiosks where you can pick up Amazon.com packages at a time and place that is convenient for you,” and are now available for student use.
Dallas freshman Nathan Denman said he uses Amazon frequently because he prefers online shopping to taking the time to visit physical stores. While he hasn’t used an Amazon locker before, he’s interested in trying out the SUB’s locker for his future orders.
“If [the locker] could be faster than waiting in the long mailbox line, then I definitely would not be opposed,” Denman said.
Kalispell, Mont., sophomore Harrison Rennie has already ordered a package to the new locker. Although he hasn’t received it yet, he said the experience has been “pretty convenient” so far.
“When you get to the checkout page and you type in your address, it prompts you to select Amazon locker as another option, so you just click on the button that says ‘second address,’” Rennie said. “Overall, it was just as fast, if not faster, than checking out to a normal One Bear Place address.”
Rennie said that he thought the locker ordering system could use some improvements, however.
“It could have been a little more intuitive as far as the user interface. There’s only one [locker] in the area but it still pulls up a big map that is a little clumsy,” Rennie said.
One option that Rennie was particularly happy with being offered was the package return service.
“Sometimes I’ll order a couple of items intending to return one to compare a couple options, and you can just put the return back in the locker. Amazon has a pretty complicated menu of options for returns; sometimes it requires you to go to a physical UPS store. Especially for people who live on campus, that return option is really valuable,” Rennie said.
Another positive quality about the Amazon locker is that it is still accessible when the mail room is closed.
“The SUB is open a lot longer than the mail room is, so it’s convenient to be able to pick up packages outside of hours,” Rennie said. “I think especially at the beginning of the year when there’s a big rush between move-in and all the new freshmen showing up with shipments, it definitely makes it a lot faster, especially with small packages.”
Students can add the new SUB locker to their Amazon address book by filling out an online form.
