Want a Smart Parcel Locker Ready for the Holidays? Here’s Why You Need to Start Now

Photo by Oxana Melis on Unsplash

The holiday season has a way of sneaking up on everyone — including property managers and condo boards. One day it’s September, and the next, couriers are stacking parcels in your lobby like a warehouse floor. If you’ve been thinking about installing a smart parcel locker system in your building, there’s something important you need to know: the timeline is longer than most people expect. And if you want one ready for the holiday rush, now is the time to start.

Why the Holidays Are the Ultimate Test for Any Building

Q4 — October through December — is when residential parcel volumes spike dramatically. Online shopping events, gift deliveries, and the general frenzy of the season mean your building will receive more packages in those three months than almost any other period of the year. Without a managed solution in place, that surge lands in your lobby, at your concierge desk, or worse, in the hands of package thieves.

A smart parcel locker handles that surge automatically — parcels are deposited by couriers, residents receive instant notifications, and retrieval happens at any hour without staff involvement. The benefits are real and well-documented, and residents notice the difference immediately. But getting there requires more lead time than most boards realise until they’re already behind.

The Full Journey: From First Quote to First Delivery

Here’s what the procurement and installation process actually looks like — and why it takes the time it does:

• Requesting quotes — Your first step is reaching out to vendors and sharing details about your building: size, layout, anticipated parcel volume, and available installation space. This takes a few days to a week, depending on how quickly information can be gathered and responses come in.
• Internal review with property management — Once quotes are in hand, your property manager and relevant stakeholders need time to review options, compare proposals, and ask follow-up questions. Budget discussions happen here. Expect one to two weeks, depending on the complexity of your building’s decision-making process.
• Condo board or committee approval — For most condominium corporations, a capital expenditure like this requires formal board approval. Depending on when your next scheduled board meeting falls, this step alone can add two to four weeks — or longer if a special meeting needs to be called.
• Placing the order — Once approval is granted, the purchase order is issued and the project moves into production.
• Manufacturing and lead time — Smart locker systems are custom-configured for each building. Lead times vary, but a production window of several weeks is typical.
• Delivery and installation — Once the unit arrives, installation is typically completed in a day. But coordinating access, trade availability, and building schedules takes advance planning. See our top tips for a smooth installation to understand what’s involved.

Add it all up, and you’re looking at a process that can take two to three months or more from the first conversation to the day your locker is live. That’s not a criticism of anyone involved — it’s simply the reality of how building decisions get made responsibly.

Starting Now Isn’t a Sign You’re Behind — It’s a Sign You’re Ahead

If you haven’t started yet, that’s completely understandable. Most boards and property managers haven’t mapped out this timeline before — there’s no reason they would have. The good news is that starting today puts you in a strong position. Reaching out in May or June means you have time to go through the full process without rushing any of the steps that matter most, like the board approval stage or installation coordination.

The buildings that struggle through the holiday season are almost always the ones that started looking into solutions in October. By then, options narrow, timelines compress, and stress levels rise. The buildings that sail through Q4 are the ones where someone said “let’s get ahead of this” back in the spring or summer.

You can be that building.

Ready to get started? Contact The Parcel Port today — the sooner you reach out, the sooner your building can be ready for whatever the holidays bring.

Related Posts

• Top Tips for Smart Locker Installations
• The Definitive Smart Locker Guide
• 10 Top Reasons People Love Smart Parcel Lockers