As colleges and universities welcome their students at the start of every semester, campus package centers must prepare themselves for a wave of challenges, both old and new.

Online shopping is a giant that has emerged from the digital world, and its presence has only become more prominent—especially on campuses. As early as 2016, there have been concerns about online shopping habits in college students, and for good reason.

Today’s students belong to a generation of digital natives. On campus, they are exploring their independence and developing their purchasing power. However limited student budgets may be, the fact remains that campuses are now populated by people who grew up with the rise of online shopping. One survey found that 92% of students shop online and 69% do so at least once a month.

Factor in the packages and mail from other aspects of a campus (like admissions, billings, memos and handouts, correspondences, etc.), and it is no surprise that college mailrooms today have plenty of work ahead of them.

Don’t worry, though. Read more to see how you can prepare your campus package center for new semesters.

Take Stock of Your Resources

The first step in updating your package center is to assess all of the resources and systems at work within it. Many educational institutions today are in the process of incorporating modern solutions (such as parcel management software and parcel lockers) into their package centers. However, many others still rely on manual sorting and handwritten documentation. Where on this spectrum does your package center lie?

Previously, St. Mary’s University in Twickenham stood somewhere in between. The receiving, processing, and collection of packages was conducted manually, but their notification system was, in part, fast-tracked through email. They later streamlined their entire system through Parcel Tracker.

Assess where you are now to determine where you are headed. Do you record inventory on physical logbooks, manually encode them on spreadsheets, or update a database? Is your notification system digitally automated, or do you send snail mail-era notices? How do you facilitate support, complaints, or feedback?

Consider your resources and how these impact the mailroom ecosystem.

• Supplies: If your package center relies heavily on paper for labeling and documentation, paperless options such as digital mailroom software can alleviate the demand and associated costs.
• Furniture: If your shelving and furniture are difficult to move, swapping these out for more mobile or modular pieces will allow you to make the most out of small spaces quickly.
• Space: Was your package center constructed for paper mail? If yes, it may not have the space for packages and larger deliveries.
• Location: Where is your package center located? Older rooms may have been placed below ground for efficiency and to reduce congestion, but moving them to more visible and central locations can bring a package center into the modern day.
• Budget: How much are you or your college willing to allocate towards renovating or improving the facilities?
• Data: How accessible are your records and transactions? Access to historical data is key for fine-tuning the steps of your plans, regardless of whether or not you have to dig through the paperwork or you can pull it up from a cloud database.
• Manpower: How many people are necessary to keep the package center going? How many people are working on a system or station at any given time? Do you need a troop handling storage? Can one person handle the front desk?

With these questions answered, you should have a realistic picture of what your package center can become.

Know Your Battles

Time is not always on your side, especially in package centers. One of the keys to success is being able to anticipate a peak season for deliveries and prepare for them accordingly with either long-term changes or immediate fixes.

The move-in rush is likely the most daunting period for a campus package center. All of the students are trying to settle in before classes start. Many haul their belongings along with them or have them shipped from home, and many others opt to just order their necessities online.

This online shopping list can include just about everything from furniture to books, clothes and even food. Faculty and other members of staff are likely to be ordering their own supplies as well. All of this is to be expected at the start of the fall semester (and to a lesser extent, the spring semester too).

Smaller periods may also emerge throughout the year. Sales on Cyber Monday and Black Friday are sure to drive items to carts, as would shopping or fashion trends cultivated on social media. The end of the school year will also see a rush as students move out, but packages will be heading off-campus at this point.

The earlier you are able to identify these trends and peak seasons the better, and this comes from consulting historical data as feedback from both package center customers and staff.

Implement the Small Fixes

When taking care of your preparations, it is critical that you avoid major system overhauls and package center renovations in the middle of the academic year. Doing so is guaranteed to cause physical and technological backlogs which may cause more problems than will be fixed. You’ll be better off implementing these during the longer breaks in between academic years.

In the meantime, you may consider some quick fixes. These tips can work for you at any point in the academic year.

• Inventory: Ensure that packages never stay in storage for long. Send regular reminders to recipients that their packages have arrived.
• Storage Space: Especially for the move-in rush, have space or a room designated for oversized packages—preferably away from where most of the traffic is to avoid a potential build-up and bottleneck of packages. Do the same for packages that are overdue for collection.
• Logging: It goes without saying that you and your staff should stay up-to-date on what goes on inside the package center. The best way to achieve this is through regularly-updated log entries. A person can’t memorize every individual package or recipient, but they should have easy access to such a list.
• Outsourcing: If your manpower is in short supply or traffic is expected to increase for a brief period of time, then temporarily expanding the team is viable. Having an extra set of hands for a week may do just the trick.

Check out this article for more tips on improving your package center or mailroom’s efficiency.

Prepare for the Big Changes

With the short-term changes out of the way, let’s consider what you can do for the long term. These changes should account for what is already at work in the package center and what is possible, given space and budget constraints.

• Location Changes: The most time-consuming and costly change would be expanding or moving your package center to a better location. Most package centers sit below ground, isolated from the campus. By positioning it closer to key areas, such as delivery points and student housing or classrooms, the campus package center can be easily slotted into a student’s route or schedule—reducing the number of standby packages.
• Technology Upgrades: Old-school methods have served their purpose, but modern solutions are needed for the modern package problems. Digital parcel management software, such as Parcel Tracker, utilize emerging technology to automate systems such as documentation, notification, and tracking. Streamlining these processes saves supplies, time, and manpower that can be dedicated to other services.
• Additional Services: In addition to online shopping, student habits will regularly change. By offering other university mail services, such as printing and photocopying, outgoing mail prep, and even passport services, the campus package center can be better integrated into the campus ecosystem.
• Furniture Overhauls: If your package center was previously designed to be fixed and unmoving, it is time to introduce modularity. Shelving and furniture that can be easily disassembled, moved, or folded gives the entire system flexibility in the face of higher volumes, increased traffic, malfunctions, and so on.

As you consider your options and develop a timeline, remember that these changes should be implemented when the delivery volumes are low (in between semesters or academic years).

Stay Up to Date

The trends and habits of your students today may not match what your campus package center was designed for, but that doesn’t mean you can’t adapt. Each new semester brings with it new students and challenges, but new opportunities too.

Campus mail services work best when they align with the needs of their students, faculty, and staff. Proper preparation is the best way to ensure that.

Sign up for Parcel Tracker and explore the options that best fit your package center.