Delivery to the trunk – a peculiarly American answer?

Amazon and Volvo announced today a partnership to let delivery companies drop off parcels to the trunk of your car. It’s actually second time lucky for Amazon: they piloted with Audi in 2015.

This isn’t just a gimmick – there is a genuine problem here, with home delivery inconvenient, and offices post rooms struggling under the unforecasted volume of e-commerce parcels. Interestingly, the solution taking root varies a lot by country: in France and Poland, collection from a specialized parcel locker is common, with 70% of French consumers using this in the past year (though it’s rarely an Amazon locker). In the UK, Collect+ enables 7,000 local independent stores to become convenient pick up and returns locations.

A dominant solution hasn’t yet emerged in the US – maybe the car trunk will be it?