Photos by Stephanie Perez
The Cal State Long Beach (CSULB) community no longer needs to go out of their way to drop off Amazon packages or worry about it being left on the front porch and susceptible to thieves, thanks to a collaboration that has officially brought Amazon@TheBeach to the campus bookstore this week.
Amazon@TheBeach is the first on-campus location in the Cal State University system, according to officials, and it aims to be make it easier and more secure for customers.
“We are trying to make it super convenient for you to get anything you need on campus,” General Manager of Amazon Campus Jon Alexander said. “[It’s a] secure place for you to pick up your packages as well as to get things even faster from us.”
Students, faculty and anyone in the community can send any item fulfilled by Amazon for pick-up at the new location. It offers exclusive benefits for students that are not available at other Amazon lockers such with a longer package hold duration of 15 days, according to the CSULB Amazon website.
Amazon Prime and PrimeStudent members have access to free same-day shipping on orders placed by noon and free one-day pickup for orders placed by 10:00PM, Alexander said.
Here is the breakdown on the process to pick up a package:
Step 1: Go to csulb.amazon.com. This is where you’ll be able to activate shipping benefits and add the campus address to your address book to make it super easy to ship.
Step 2: Go onto Amazon and shop like you normally would. When you check out, select the campus location as the destination where you want to receive the package. As long as it is an Amazon fulfilled item, you can ship it to CSULB.
Step 3: Once the package arrives and it is scanned into the back room, you’ll be notified that your package is ready.
Step 4: It is important to send them an email when you are on your way so the employees know to put your package in one of the lockers. Once the item is in the locker you’ll receive another message saying your package is ready.
Step 5: When you come in, look for the number on the locker that matches your email. You will scan the barcode provided to you in the email and the locker pops open.
It only takes about 30 seconds to get a package ready, so don’t fret if you forgot to let them know you are on your way.
Customer services will be provided at the front desk, but with the exclusive process it is not necessary to talk to employees.
“We’ve tried designing a self-service experience driven by your mobile phone,” Alexander said. “How can we do this without talking to anyone and that’s how we came up with the locker system.”
If the package is bigger than the size of the locker, the system will know to direct the package to the desk instead of the lockers.
With the positive feedback from the 14 campus locations throughout the country, they plan to open three more on-campus locations this year, he said.
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