Primary Audience: West Midlands DTC founders
Summary: Lockers and out-of-home delivery have gone from “optional add-on” to a mainstream expectation. If your checkout still treats it like a side quest, you’ll feel it in failed deliveries and support tickets.
Suggested Posting Day: Thursday
If your checkout only offers “deliver to my door”, you’re quietly making life harder for your customers.
Lockers and out‑of‑home (OOH) delivery aren’t a niche anymore.
They’re becoming a default.
I’m seeing it from our side in Birmingham.
When you give people a locker option, failed deliveries drop.
Customer service emails drop.
And you stop paying twice for the same parcel to go out again.
A lot of founders still treat delivery choices like a platform feature.
It isn’t.
It’s a commercial decision.
Mini example:
One local DTC brand we support had a spike in “missed delivery” complaints after a promo.
We added a locker option at checkout and pushed it in the order confirmation email.
Within two weeks, the noise dropped and the re-delivery cost stopped eating the margin.
Practical takeaway:
Go into your last 30 days of orders and check three things:
1) How many were re-deliveries.
2) How many “where is my parcel?” tickets were actually “I wasn’t in”.
3) What % of customers would have chosen a locker if you’d offered it.
If you’re shipping DTC in the UK in 2026 and you don’t have an OOH option, you’re not being premium.
You’re being inconvenient.
What’s your customers’ biggest delivery complaint right now — missed deliveries, returns, or something else?
Source Notes:
- InternetRetailing on InPost UK parcel volumes and locker network growth (Jan 2026): https://internetretailing.net/inpost-posts-record-q4-as-uk-parcel-volumes-surge/