http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2012/s3656885.htmABC...

http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2012/s3656885.htm

ABC interview with AP and MB.

LINDY KERIN: Australia Post's Mel Ward says an extra 2,000 staff have been put on to get the parcels delivered. She says 24 hour lockers have been installed in all capital cities for the customer to pick their own parcels up.

MELANIE WARD: We have 49 locations around the country with 24/7 parcel lockers, so basically what that means is you can register for a 24/7 parcel locker, choose your location, and then when you buy online, you can put that in your address and when the parcel arrives at your parcel locker you receive an SMS and an email, with a unique code and you can just pop along there and pick up your parcel.

LINDY KERIN: Australia Post says thousands of people have registered for the lockers. It wants to have 250 of them around the country by the end of next year.

When it comes to parcel lockers, Australia Post has competition. The 24/7 parcel pick up model is being taken up by high profile businessman Mark Bouris and his company TZ Limited. Today it's announced a similar system will be up and running in January.

MARK BOURIS: Consumers buy things online, want it delivered ASAP, generally speaking are at work, slogging away, aren't at home when the stuff gets delivered, so the whole idea about this is having depots where consumers can have their online goods assigned to and pick it up on their way home.

LINDY KERIN: Mark Bouris says his system was developed in response to consumers who were increasingly frustrated about delivery services.

MARK BOURIS: Consumers want secure and fast and reliable delivery to somewhere which is on their way home or close to where they live, that's what the research tells us. They don't want to be lining up anywhere, they don't want to be punching in codes into something similar to what you do at an ATM, they want to be able to quickly use their smart device and just pick stuff up and get out of there.

The best and ultimate outcome of all of this is that the systems are deployed at a home base, in other words one system for you at home. So when the courier comes, there's an electronic system sitting at your, you know, underneath your letterbox for example.

And that will be the next stage of all this and we actually have built that technology now and we actually have a personalised, individual electronic box ready to go into people's homes.

LINDY KERIN: How big is the box?

MARK BOURIS: The box is - you can choose your size, because you may want to get, you know, a week's worth of groceries or you may just want to get a bottle of wine or you may just want to use it for deliveries of T-shirts.

You can choose, so there's three different sizes.

LINDY KERIN: But for now the public boxes will be set up in places like shopping centres, newsagents and service stations.