Amazon Locker pilot program goes live

Weird stuff happens a lot in San Francisco, and then there's this: a giant, orange Amazon locker that's appeared without warning, or explanation. Amid the throngs of tourists, Amazon's put what it calls "Giant," an aptly-named variant of its locker system that can be found in 7-11 convenience stores, and other retailers. It's plugged into power, and appears fully functional, with a keypad and display screen where people can plug in their confirmation number and collect things they've purchased online.

Amazon’s delivery lockers have been sprouting up everywhere since they first arrived in late last year, appearing in several cities in the US and UK. The world’s largest retailer’s newest partner is Staples, whose office supply stores are the latest to house the lockers, reports Reuters. Amazon Lockers function as single-use post office boxes, allowing online shoppers to pick up their packages at a time that’s convenient for them, without having to schedule deliveries. Amazon has already partnered with a number of brick-and-mortar stores in the US and UK to house the lockers, including 7-Eleven, Rite-Aid, Safeway, and Walgreen’s. We're sure that whatever Amazon is paying makes the deal worthwhile for Staples, but having such a close competitor effectively setting up shop in your stores has to make the relationship a little awkward.

Update: By searching for Amazon Lockers around San Francisco and surrounding cities, Geekwire has discovered that RadioShack will also be taking part in this new program. The site also searched and found some Amazon Lockers in grocery chain Albertsons in southern California. While this hasn't been officially announced, it looks like Amazon has at least a few retails partners on board.

Amazon Lockers, a program that lets buyers pick up packages from secure boxes in convenience stores rather than have them delivered to a residential address, has expanded into another major market. The Wall Street Journal reports that Amazon has set up lockers in several 7-Elevens around San Francisco, making it the fifth place to get them. Launched in late 2011, the program has previously put lockers in London, Seattle, New York, and Washington, DC; it's meant to be more secure and convenient than traditional delivery while saving Amazon the cost of shipping packages to multiple locations.

Some Silicon Valley locations were showing up last week, and we're now seeing about ten lockers listed around the Bay Area, though Amazon's help page still hasn't been updated with the information. While we hope to see the program expanded, The Wall Street Journal points out that Amazon lockers could be seen as a physical presence, leaving the company more vulnerable in its ongoing fight against sales tax. New York and Washington State already collect sales tax on Amazon purchases, and California is set to begin collecting it within the year.

Amazon has been quietly expanding its locker service that launched last year, and now lists locker locations in Seattle, New York, Washington, DC, and London. You can choose to have your reasonably-sized Amazon packages shipped directly to one of these lockers found inside select 7-Elevens, instead of missing the delivery person or worrying about a Kindle sitting on your doorstep until you make it home from work. But it seems Locker Delivery isn't just in those four areas: as first noted by TechCrunch, Amazon has a tool to search for nearby lockers, and several Silicon Valley locations are showing up. So far we haven't had much luck unearthing any other new cities, but let us know in the comments if Amazon has operational lockers near you.

We already got a peek at the electronics powering the mysterious Amazon Lockers that have been popping up at 7-Eleven locations in Seattle. It now appears the devices have gone live, and we're getting a look at them in action thanks to GeekWire's Todd Bishop. When placing a recent order on Amazon.com, Bishop noticed a "search for a locker location" option when choosing his shipping. This led him to one of the touchscreen-enabled locker banks at a 7-Eleven store on Queen Anne Hill. After entering a six digit code he'd been emailed, one of the lockers popped open, and he was able to successfully retrieve his order: a set of batteries. It's not clear how many Seattle customers have access to this feature yet, and Amazon's been keeping tight-lipped on the subject, but we assume the tests have been going well: Amazon just started rolling the program out to eight different locations in New York City. Check out the video of Bishop's trial run below.