Out-of-home delivery (OOH delivery) has quietly become one of the most significant structural shifts in e-commerce logistics. While most merchants still default to home delivery as their primary shipping option, a growing share of consumers is bypassing the front door entirely, choosing parcel lockers, delivery pickup points and PUDO (Pick-Up Drop-Off) networks instead. This is not a niche preference. It is a market-wide trend backed by data, accelerating infrastructure investment and a generational shift in how people expect to receive parcels.
This market study brings together the latest research on OOH delivery across Europe and globally, covering network growth, consumer preferences by generation, country-by-country adoption, sustainability implications, and what the data means for e-commerce merchants planning their carrier and logistics strategy in 2026 and beyond.
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Out-of-home delivery refers to any parcel delivery model where the recipient collects their order from a location other than their home or workplace address. The two main formats are:
Self-service locker units, typically located in supermarkets, petrol stations, transport hubs, and residential areas. The customer receives a PIN or QR code and collects their parcel at any time, 24 hours a day. InPost is the dominant independent operator in Europe; DHL Packstation is the market leader in Germany; Amazon Locker operates its own proprietary network.
A PUDO point is a staffed location, usually a convenience store, tobacconist, newsagent, or pharmacy, that accepts parcel deliveries on the customer's behalf. These locations typically operate during shop opening hours and require ID for collection. In France and the UK, each boasts over 50,000 PUDO locations. Mondial Relay, GLS ParcelShops, and Evri ParcelShops are among the major network operators.
OOH infrastructure is increasingly used in the reverse direction too. Customers drop off returns at parcel lockers or PUDO points rather than waiting for a courier collection. This is transforming the returns economy and is one of the drivers of network expansion, particularly in the Nordics and the UK. The returns management dimension of OOH is now inseparable from the forward delivery story.
A common merchant misconception is that "adding OOH" means connecting to a single network. In practice, OOH delivery in Europe is fragmented across dozens of operators, each with their own API, label format, size restrictions, and carrier compatibility rules. Merchants integrating OOH without a multi-carrier platform risk building separate manual workflows per network, which scales poorly. More on managing this in the strategic section below.
The scale of OOH delivery growth in Europe is substantial. According to Mordor Intelligence, the European OOH delivery market was at $7 billion in 2025 and expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15.03% to reach $14.12 billion by 2030. That trajectory puts OOH firmly ahead of the broader parcel market's growth rate.
The latest infrastructure data from the Out of Home Delivery in Europe 2025 report (Last Mile Experts) confirms the direction of travel. All figures below are sourced from that report:
| Metric | 2023 (end of year) | 2025 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total active OOH points (Europe) | 504,130 | 646,480 | +28% |
| PUDO locations | ~400,000 | 462,080 | +15% |
| Automated Parcel Machines (APMs) | ~104,000 | 184,400 | +77% |
| OOH parcel volumes (2024) | ~1.65 billion | 2 billion+ | +20%+ |
The APM growth rate is particularly striking. Locker networks have expanded by 77% in two years, driven by aggressive investment from InPost, DHL, and a wave of carrier-agnostic operators. CEP Research reports that the OOH parcel delivery market surged by over 20% to more than two billion parcels in 2024 alone, compared to just 5% growth in home deliveries over the same period. The structural gap between these two growth rates is widening every year.
Within OOH, smart parcel lockers (APMs) are the fastest-growing sub-segment. The global smart parcel locker market is expected to reach $2.37 billion by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 14.8%. InPost's Q4 and full-year 2024 results confirm the company added over 11,500 APMs in 2024, ending the year with 46,977 locker locations, a 33% year-on-year increase. In the UK specifically, InPost delivered 27.2 million parcels in Q4 2024, a 58% year-on-year increase, with full-year UK volumes doubling versus 2023.
The financial logic behind OOH is straightforward. Last-mile delivery accounts for 40–50% of total distribution cost for carriers. Home delivery carries a first-attempt failure rate of between 2% and 25% depending on the market and carrier. Each failed attempt generates an additional cost and an additional emission. OOH delivery achieves near-100% first-attempt success. For high-volume merchants, routing a meaningful share of orders through OOH channels is not just a consumer preference play, it is a cost efficiency decision.
ShippyPro integrates with DHL, InPost, Colissimo, Mondial Relay, UPS, Correos, and dozens of other carriers offering parcel locker and PUDO delivery options, so you can offer OOH at checkout without building separate carrier integrations from scratch.
Consumer adoption of out-of-home delivery has accelerated sharply since 2019. According to Geopost's 2025 E-Shopper Barometer, Europe's widest annual survey of e-shopper preferences covering 25,000 shoppers across 22 countries, 46% of regular European online shoppers now favour OOH delivery options, representing a 15-point increase since 2019.
The chart below, based on DHL's 2025 Out-of-Home Delivery Trends research, shows how delivery channel preferences break down across consumer generations. Home delivery remains the majority preference across all age groups, but younger consumers show notably stronger appetite for alternative formats.
Market Data
Source: DHL eCommerce Insights, 2025 Out-of-Home Delivery Trends
"Other" includes click & collect from retailer premises, work address delivery, and safe-place deposits.
The data reveals a clear generational gradient. Younger consumers show higher OOH adoption, with Gen Z and Millennials combined allocating 27% of preference to non-home formats (lockers + PUDO). Baby Boomers are at 21%, a smaller but still substantial minority. The "Other" category, which includes retailer click-and-collect and safe-place deposits, also represents meaningful volume. As the consumer base skews younger over the coming decade, OOH share will grow structurally regardless of any individual preference shifts.
Flexibility is the primary driver. The ability to collect parcels at a time of the consumer's choosing, without needing to be home for a delivery window, resonates strongly across all demographics. Security is a close second, particularly in urban markets where doorstep theft is a concern. Landmark Global research found that 81% of shoppers will abandon a cart if their preferred delivery option is unavailable. That is a direct conversion cost for merchants not offering OOH at checkout.
OOH adoption is not uniform across Europe. The market divides roughly into three tiers: countries where OOH is already the dominant or near-dominant channel, countries in active transition, and countries where home delivery still overwhelmingly prevails.
| Country | Key Stat | Dominant Network | Notable Dynamic |
|---|---|---|---|
| Poland | ~40,000 APMs; 46+ OOH points per 10,000 people | InPost (dominant), DHL | World's highest locker density per capita; OOH close to majority of all e-commerce parcels |
| Czechia | 58 OOH points per 10,000 population (all visible locations) | Zásilkovna / Packeta, Czech Post | Very high PUDO penetration; locker-first for younger demographics |
| Finland / Nordics | OOH accounts for close to 50% of deliveries | Posti, PostNord, DHL | Historical postal infrastructure evolved directly into OOH default |
| France | 50,000+ PUDO locations; "point relais" culturally embedded | Mondial Relay, Colissimo, DPD | PUDO-heavy (vs locker-heavy); click & collect strong in retail |
Germany plans to double its Packstation network from around 15,000 to 30,000 by 2030. At 0.18 lockers per 1,000 people in 2025, it remains underdense relative to its e-commerce volume, but investment is accelerating. Italy has seen exceptional growth, expanding from 48,310 OOH points in 2024 to 60,322 in 2025, and is now ranked second in Europe for PUDO density. The DHL–Poste Italiane partnership aims to create a joint network of over 10,000 APMs across Italy and the Iberian Peninsula. The UK has over 50,000 PUDO locations and a rapidly expanding locker base, with InPost UK growing 58% in Q4 2024 alone.
Spain (excluding residential parcel lockers) and Southern European markets are earlier in the OOH adoption curve. However, Spain has 10,905 active lockers in 2025 and is among the fastest-growing markets in Europe. Carrier-agnostic networks are starting to emerge, which typically catalyses adoption by removing the carrier-exclusivity barrier that historically limited consumer choice.
If you're running a multi-country operation, map your order volumes against country-level OOH penetration rates before setting carrier rules. In Poland and Czechia, defaulting to home delivery for domestic orders means missing the preferred channel for a large share of your customer base. Use ShippyPro's AI shipping automation to build carrier selection rules that automatically route to OOH-capable carriers in high-penetration markets, then use the Optimizer to track performance and cost by region over time.
The environmental credentials of OOH delivery are substantial, though the real-world numbers depend heavily on how consumers access their collection point. The key mechanism is route consolidation: a single delivery vehicle drops dozens of parcels at one locker rather than driving to each address individually.
Research from the Norwegian Transport Economics Institute found a robust potential for CO₂ reductions of 13–32% by replacing home deliveries with parcel locker deliveries, accounting for both the carrier leg and consumer pick-up trips. A separate simulation-based study (Janinhoff, Klein, and Scholz, 2024) found that parcel lockers can reduce the number of delivery vehicles by up to 30% and total kilometres driven by up to 16%. In high-density urban areas, the upper-bound estimates are higher still: Parcel and Postal Technology International cites research suggesting a two-thirds reduction in CO₂ per parcel is possible where dense, walkable OOH networks are in place.
The critical caveat: these gains are largely neutralised if consumers drive to their collection point. Lockers within walking or cycling distance of the recipient deliver the environmental benefit. Lockers requiring a car journey can generate more total emissions than a direct home delivery. This is why network density, not just network size, is the key sustainability variable.
Home delivery in many European markets carries a first-attempt failure rate of between 5% and 25%. Each failed attempt generates a redelivery, additional vehicle movements, and additional cost. OOH delivery achieves near-100% first-attempt success in optimised networks. That alone, at scale, represents a material reduction in total delivery kilometres per parcel. The tracking and visibility improvements that come from integrating OOH networks also give merchants and carriers earlier warning of collection delays, reducing the operational cost of managing parcel dwell time at locker locations.
Several structural trends are reshaping the competitive landscape of OOH delivery infrastructure and how merchants should think about connecting to it.
Historically, most locker networks were carrier-proprietary. DHL Packstations accepted only DHL parcels. InPost lockers ran on InPost's own carrier network. This is changing rapidly. Carrier-agnostic or open OOH networks, where a single locker or PUDO point accepts deliveries from multiple carriers, are now actively supported by most major operators. The first InPost-to-GLS locker access in Poland, announced in 2025, is a leading example. Geopost (DPD's parent company) now has over 140,000 OOH points across Europe, with 94% of the European population living within 10 minutes of a pickup point. Open networks increase utilisation rates and reduce the infrastructure cost per parcel, making the economics of OOH delivery increasingly attractive relative to home delivery.
Vinted Go is one of the clearest illustrations of how the returns use case is driving OOH infrastructure investment. Launched in 2022, Vinted Go built its own PUDO network in France with over 200 electric vehicles and carrier-agnostic lockers, now operational in 90+ French cities with over 2,000 available points. This model, purpose-built for C2C returns and resale logistics, signals a new category of OOH network operator that did not exist five years ago. For merchants building returns programmes, the ability to offer locker drop-off as a returns method is increasingly a consumer expectation rather than a premium feature.
The current generation of locker infrastructure is increasingly sophisticated. Real-time capacity APIs allow carriers and merchants to check locker availability before routing a parcel. Temperature-controlled lockers are expanding OOH into grocery and pharmaceutical categories. Modular locker designs allow network operators to scale capacity at specific locations without replacing units. API standardisation, while still fragmented, is improving: platforms like ShippyPro's carrier integrations abstract much of this complexity, allowing merchants to connect to OOH-capable carriers without building and maintaining individual integrations. The ShippyPro API gives developers direct programmatic access to this multi-carrier OOH infrastructure.
Separate integrations per OOH operator, manual label creation per network, no consolidated tracking, carrier selection rules built per-market by hand, and no single view of OOH vs. home delivery split.
Single integration covers all OOH-capable carriers. Automated carrier selection rules route to lockers and PUDO points by market, volume, and cost. Unified tracking across every OOH and home delivery network. Returns via locker handled through the same platform.
The market data is clear, but translating it into operational decisions requires moving beyond the numbers. Here is how the evidence should inform merchant strategy in 2026.
The 81% cart abandonment risk when a preferred delivery method is unavailable makes offering OOH at checkout a direct revenue protection measure. For merchants targeting Gen Z and Millennial consumers in Poland, France, the UK, or any Nordic market, presenting only home delivery options is leaving a significant share of potential conversions on the table. ShippyPro's Checkout feature lets customers choose from a live map of nearby parcel lockers and PUDO points, without requiring your team to build and maintain individual integrations with each carrier's pickup network.
Merchants operating at volume should model the cost difference between home delivery and OOH delivery on a per-market basis. In markets with dense OOH networks, the carrier rate for locker or PUDO delivery is typically lower than home delivery, the first-attempt success rate is higher, and the redelivery cost is eliminated. Use carrier invoice analysis to understand your total shipping cost structure across carriers and markets before building a business case for OOH routing.
No single OOH network covers all European markets with equal density. A Poland-first strategy might prioritise InPost. A France-heavy operation needs Mondial Relay and Colissimo point relais. A UK-focused merchant needs Evri ParcelShops and Royal Mail's growing locker network. Managing these through a multi-carrier shipping platform with automated carrier selection rules is significantly more scalable than building market-by-market integrations. The AI shipping automation layer lets you build routing logic that accounts for OOH penetration rates, carrier cost, and delivery time SLAs simultaneously.
OOH return volume is growing at a similar rate to forward delivery OOH volume. Consumers who use lockers for deliveries will expect to use lockers for returns. Merchants with easy returns programmes that support locker drop-off will see higher return completion rates, lower carrier collection costs, and better customer satisfaction scores than those offering only courier collection or in-store returns. The infrastructure to support this is now available at scale across major European markets.
Add parcel locker and PUDO delivery options to your checkout. Let customers choose their preferred collection point from a live carrier network map, without building separate API integrations per carrier.
Explore Checkout →Manage all carriers, including OOH-capable networks, from a single dashboard. Build automated carrier selection rules by market, cost, and delivery type.
Explore the Platform →Offer locker drop-off and PUDO returns across your carrier network. Reduce collection costs and give customers the self-service returns experience they expect.
Explore Easy Return →Use AI-driven carrier selection rules to automatically route orders to OOH networks in markets where locker density and cost justify it.
See How It Works →Browse ShippyPro's full carrier directory, including DHL, GLS, InPost, Evri, Royal Mail, and other networks offering OOH delivery options across Europe.
View All Integrations →Guides, market studies, carrier benchmarks, and tools to help you build a smarter multi-carrier shipping strategy for every market you sell in.
Browse Resources →Out-of-home delivery (OOH delivery) refers to any e-commerce delivery model where the parcel is sent to a location other than the recipient's home or work address. The two main formats are automated parcel machines (APMs or parcel lockers), where customers collect parcels using a PIN or QR code at any time of day, and PUDO points (Pick-Up Drop-Off points), which are staffed retail locations like convenience stores or newsagents. OOH delivery is also used for returns, with customers dropping parcels at lockers or PUDO locations rather than waiting for a courier collection.
The European OOH delivery market is projected to reach $7 billion in 2025, growing at a CAGR of 15% to reach $14.12 billion by 2030, according to Mordor Intelligence. In terms of infrastructure, there are now over 646,000 active OOH points across Europe (as of 2025), comprising 462,080 PUDO locations and 184,400 automated parcel machines. OOH parcel volumes exceeded two billion in 2024, growing over 20% year-on-year, compared to just 5% growth for home deliveries.
Poland has the highest OOH density in Europe by a significant margin, with almost 46 OOH points per 10,000 inhabitants and around 40,000 automated parcel machines, primarily operated by InPost. Czechia (58 total OOH locations per 10,000 population) and the Nordic countries are also among the most mature OOH markets. France has over 50,000 PUDO locations and a deeply embedded "point relais" culture. Italy is one of the fastest-growing markets, expanding from 48,310 to 60,322 OOH points between 2024 and 2025. Germany and the UK are in active transition, with significant infrastructure investment underway.
The evidence is broadly positive, with important caveats. Research from the Norwegian Transport Economics Institute found CO₂ reductions of 13–32% when replacing home deliveries with parcel locker deliveries, accounting for both the carrier and consumer leg. In dense urban areas with walkable locker networks, the reduction can be substantially higher. The key variable is how customers access their collection point: consumers who walk or cycle to a nearby locker generate significant emissions savings; those who drive to a distant locker can partially or fully offset those savings. Network density, not just size, is the critical sustainability variable.
The most practical approach for multi-market merchants is to use a multi-carrier shipping platform that already integrates with OOH-capable carriers and exposes locker and PUDO delivery options at checkout. ShippyPro's Checkout feature displays a live map of nearby collection points at checkout, covering carriers including InPost, DHL, Colissimo, Mondial Relay, UPS, Correos, and others with drop-off point networks. The setup requires connecting your carriers and embedding a map widget, and is best suited for merchants with access to a development resource for the initial integration.
ShippyPro connects your store to every major OOH-capable carrier network in Europe, with automated routing rules, unified tracking, and a returns flow that handles locker drop-offs as standard. Start a 14-day free trial and see the full carrier network available in your markets.