‘Unattended Delivery’: Many Challenges Remain to Further Expand Services

Editorial

15:28 JST, July 25, 2025

With labor shortages becoming more severe, there is a need to streamline home delivery services. The government and the transportation industry need to carefully consider measures to avoid anxiety among consumers.

The Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry has established a panel of experts to further promote “unattended delivery,” which means package drop-off services on residential doorsteps or in lockers set up to receive packages via contactless delivery services. This is because there is a growing need to reduce the burden of redeliveries on the transportation industry. Specific measures are expected to be finalized by this autumn.

In recent years, unattended delivery services have been expanding, particularly since the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to delivery lockers, it has become common practice to deliver packages to locations specified in advance by recipients, such as doorsteps, gas meter boxes or the baskets of parked bicycles.

With the expansion of online shopping, the volume of home delivery packages handled in Japan in fiscal 2023 reached 5 billion, and it continues to grow.

The redelivery rate for major transportation business operators was around 15% in the late 2010s, but it had decreased to 9.5% as of this spring. This may be because unattended delivery has been taking root. The government has set a target of reducing the redelivery rate to 6%. To that end, it is necessary to increase the spread of unattended delivery services.

The basic rules for home delivery services are set out in the “general conditions of the standard transportation contract” based on the Motor Truck Transportation Business Law. Packages are required to be delivered in person to recipients, and unattended delivery is not mentioned in the standard conditions.

Transportation business operators use the standard conditions as a template for establishing contract conditions with freight owners. Major transportation business operators, such as Yamato Transport Co. and Sagawa Express Co., have created their own contract conditions that allow for unattended delivery, obtaining approval from the transport ministry and expanding their services.

According to the ministry, the expert panel is considering explicitly specifying unattended delivery as one of the basic services in the general conditions of the standard transportation contract. This aims to make it easier not only for major transportation business operators but also for freight owners and other transportation companies to adopt unattended delivery services.

However, among consumers, there is concern that if unattended delivery is explicitly stated in the standard conditions, it will become the standard service, and additional fees will be charged in cases of in-person deliveries.

The government said it intends to leave decisions on whether to charge additional fees for in-person deliveries to the discretion of each company. This can be said to be a reasonable direction for now.

However, there are other many challenges to further expand unattended delivery services.

The biggest concern is theft. When packages are left on doorsteps, there is concern that they could be soaked by rain or otherwise damaged. There is also a strong sense of resistance over the possibility of personal information on delivery slips being seen by third parties. How home delivery company employees can gain entrance to apartment buildings that have automatic lock systems is another point of discussion.

It is vital to thoroughly examine each of these challenges and explore approaches that consumers can accept.

(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, July 25, 2025)