Fast-growing Out-of-Home locker specialist Bloq-it has launched a new product aimed specifically at the cost-draining Returns sector. Logistics Business caught up with CEO Miha Jagodic at Parcel + Post Expo.
Fresh from closing a €28 million funding round in May this year, ambitious Portugal-based start-up Bloq-it continues to make waves in the increasingly significant Out-of-Home (OOH) parcel locker market. Sales are growing, new customers are joining the roster, and the product portfolio is expanding.
Co-founder and CEO Miha Jagodic is confident about the position Bloq-it is establishing to help customers meet the expensive challenges of last-mile excellence in the e-commerce age. “We are the fastest growing smart locker, and this year we became the world’s biggest locker provider,” he confides. “That is in terms of both volume and amount of lockers delivered, as well as being the only provider combining all the big brands, including Vinted, InPost, and DPD, with many more soon to be announced,” he adds.
Jagodic (pictured, below) believes that OOH – and specifically Bloq-it – are going to be vital to e-commerce providers and courier companies unable to sustain cost-effectively the pace and volume of delivery required to individual home addresses.
“With the growth of e-commerce in Europe, the existing infrastructure cannot hold, it must break,” he explains. “‘The courier companies and logistics providers will not be able to keep delivering to homes in the volumes that will be required, because the costs will be too high. Last mile is very expensive, so they will have to optimise, and OOH is the way to do that. Instead of going to 50 houses you can drop 50 parcels in one spot and move on.”
In his view Bloq-it’s role is to be an essential building block in this optimisation. “We see ourselves as the backbone of Out-of-Home infrastructure,” he explains.
As all logistics professionals know, a necessary but unpleasant extension to already eye-watering last-mile costs comes in the form of returns, often offered free by retailers to consumers in the battle for customer service excellence (Jagodic quotes figures claiming that 97% of customers will re-shop with a retailer that has executed a smooth return of goods on their behalf).
The figures are sobering: 30% of operator costs sunk in reverse logistics; a 7.2% growth prediction for the reverse logistics market over the next decade. “One parcel in five is now being returned,” claims Jagodic.
Bloq-it’s solution is Drop (pictured, below), delivering shopper convenience and courier efficiency in a single drop box. “We believe it will be a best seller in 2026,” he predicts. “It’s versatile, it can be integrated into an existing locker or as a standalone product. The crucial point is that returns are always picked up by couriers, not specific individuals, so there is no designated door or specific ID required. The process for customer and courier takes seconds. There is a printer integrated into each Drop, the shopper prints out the retailer’s barcode, fixes it to the parcel and drops it into the bin. All parcels go into the same bag which can be lifted out and replaced in moments by the courier.”
He says that Drop already has two substantial customers, with the first rollout scheduled for the end of this year for a UK buyer. He has complete belief in the capabilities of his products and the team behind them. “Our operational service coverage across Europe is now very good, we specialise in providing and maintaining lockers only – nothing else – and our SLAs and terms are better than others,” he asserts.
Meanwhile, Bloq-it is scanning wider horizons. “We are planning to install 25,000 lockers next year, and we don’t believe anyone else will get close to that figure,” he says.
Other ambitions include being the only company that can simultaneously supply China, Europe and North America; he says the company is exploring manufacturing options in all three territories.
Bloq-it’s plans for North America are not concrete (“We want to be the company that can accommodate the needs of the US market”) but he recognises that returns are a growing issue there. Security – theft from doorsteps and lobbies – is another factor driving suppliers and consumers towards OOH solutions. “Amazon refunds you in the US if you have a parcel stolen, but there are more than one million stolen every single day, according to the latest figures. At some stage, they are going to want to fix that.”
