package solution

Multifamily owners and managers tackle the acceleration of online shopping.

COVID-19 has buried apartment operators under a mountain of deliveries.

E-commerce is here to stay and package management is a burden that property managers will be forced to deal with at increasing levels for the foreseeable future, says Michael Patton, Fetch founder and CEO.

Fetch Package runs a delivery service for multifamily communities that provides residents with a time-saving amenity and lifts the burden of processing and managing packages off the property manager. The company accepts packages at local Fetch-operated warehouses and coordinates door-to-door delivery directly with residents.

As online shopping becomes ubiquitous, so do the boxes delivered to homes across the country. For apartment dwellers — and the managers of the buildings they live in — it’s tough to manage the boxes that pile up, sometimes clogging precious space for days. The problem’s only getting worse, says Rick Haughey, vice president of the nonprofit National Multifamily Housing Council.

The last-mile problem has largely been solved for consumers. Within a day, UPS or Amazon can put a package on anyone’s doorstep. But sometimes instead of the doorstep, that package ends up in the bushes, or lost among a sea of boxes in a building’s leasing office. The last mile is no longer the issue. The problem now is the last 50 feet.

"The e-commerce explosion has flooded apartment buildings with packages,” Patton said. “I saw what a pain it was for the property managers, and that was an eye opening moment for me.” Now, Patton says, he has a solution. His startup, Fetch, collects the parcels mailed to apartments at off-site warehouses and then delivers them to residents at a scheduled time.

This Texas-based startup allows landlords to outsource package delivery, freeing up valuable space and upfront costs for landlords. Landlords sign on with Fetch to allow off-site acceptance of packages from any company and then tenants work directly with Fetch via an app to schedule the time of delivery when they are home until 11 p.m. at night.