A courier puts parcels into Hive Box lockers in Nanjing, East China's Jiangsu Province. (Photo: GT)

Hive Box, a self-service smart locker company, is the subject of heated debate in China after the company announced it would charge late fees to customers who don't pick up their couriered packages on time. 

Experts said that the company shows how technology can be used to address shipping demand, but Hive Box's fee levies risks flouting the consumer protection rules if it does not obtain customer consent. 

On April 30, the Shenzhen-based company announced that customers who have their parcels stored in boxes will have to pay 0.5 yuan ($0.07) per 12 hours up to a 3 yuan maximum, after a free 12-hour storage deadline. 

The company said the move was intended to increase the turnover of its boxes, but customers are calling it "mandatory fee charges." 

As of press time, almost 50 residential compounds in Shanghai had announced a boycott of the company's services. Some said it will have to extend the free storage deadline to 24 hours and let customers decide whether a parcel goes into the storage box. 

In an open letter to Hive Box on Sunday by Zhonghuan Huayuan, one of the residential compounds in Shanghai, the residents said "it is a contract between the shipping company and customers that parcels should be delivered directly into the hands of customers. Hive Box is just trying to get in between and make money."

Yang Zhenyi, a Shanghai resident, said "12-hour deadline is too short. I think the company can charge some fees, but it will also need to allow more time for collection. It is only reasonable if customers have a say in whether to use the locker service."

The company previously offered the storage service for free, and it is common practice for delivery people to drop the parcels at one of the Hive Box stations for collection if the recipients are not home. 

The service is wildly popular with people who are not often at home or who do not wish to expose their exact home address, and it is often seen as a solution to China's soaring demand for courier services. 

In 2019, the company accounted for around 44 percent of the domestic market. Around 406,000 smart storage boxes were set up in 2019, according to China's State Post Bureau, and about 10 percent of parcels are put into storage boxes rather than sent directly to customers.

However, the loss-making Hive Box has been facing financial strains. According to the Xinhua News Agency, Hive Box lost about 781 million yuan in 2019. Another courier locker operator under China Post lost 517 million yuan in the same year.

Yue Shenshan, a lawyer based in Beijing, told the Global Times on Sunday that self-service locker companies such as Hive Box should obtain consent from customers before putting parcels in lockers, or risk violating the regulation protecting consumers' legal rights.