In short
- With home delivery the courier moves to the customer; with a pickup point or locker the customer moves to the parcel. Price, failure mode and convenience all follow from that one direction.
- A pickup point is cheaper than home delivery with almost every carrier, because it contains no delivery attempt that can fail.
- What fails differs: at the door it is "not at home" and a second attempt; at a point it is a customer who never collects and a parcel returned after about a week — at your cost.
- France, Belgium and Spain treat the pickup point as normal and choose it at checkout. Germany, the Netherlands and Austria expect the door, with the DHL Packstation as Germany’s accepted alternative.
- Set the default per country, not per store. One default for all of Europe is wrong in at least one country you sell into.
- When a sender near your customer packs, you choose the delivery form once per product and country, and every order follows it.
Most shops choose between pickup point and home delivery on the rate, and the rate is the least interesting of the three things that differ. A rate card does not tell you who has to move, what happens when it goes wrong, or what the customer in that country was expecting before they reached your checkout.
This article puts the three forms — point, locker, door — on exactly those three axes, then turns it into a default per country and a way to set it when someone else does the packing. Rates themselves live on /en/shipping-options, because they change.
Three forms, three axes
| Home delivery | Pickup point (shop) | Parcel locker | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who moves | The courier, to the door | The customer, to a shop with opening hours | The customer, to a machine with none |
| Price | Highest | Lower | Lower — usually the same as the point |
| What fails | "Not at home", second attempt, neighbour | Customer never collects; returned after about a week | Locker full on arrival; parcel diverted to a point |
| Proof of delivery | Signature or photo at the door | Scan on handover, often with ID | Code or app to open the compartment |
| Size limits | None | Yes; large parcels refused | Yes, per compartment; nothing large or heavy |
| Returns | Customer goes to a point anyway | Same point, often the same trip | Same locker or a point |
Who moves: the axis everything follows from
Home delivery is a courier driving to an address at a time the customer did not choose. It is comfortable when the customer is in and expensive when they are not: the second attempt, the neighbour, the card through the door. That probability is baked into the rate.
At a pickup point the courier drives to one place with dozens of parcels, and the customer moves at a moment that suits them. No failed attempt for the carrier, so a lower rate; one extra errand for the customer, but one they schedule themselves.
The locker is the pickup point without opening hours. For a customer who gets home at ten in the evening it is the best of the three; for a customer with no locker nearby the option simply does not exist.
What customers expect, country by country
This is the axis foreign shops underestimate most, because their own habit feels like the norm. It is not. Two neighbouring countries can have opposite defaults.
| Country | Default expectation | Sensible default for you | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| France | Point relais chosen at checkout (Mondial Relay, Chronopost, Colissimo) | Pickup point | Home delivery is the paid upgrade |
| Belgium | bpost point or locker; Mondial Relay common | Pickup point | Lockers widely used |
| Spain | Points growing fast; home still common | Offer both; point as default for low-value goods | Correos and private networks |
| Netherlands | Home delivery by PostNL; points accepted | Home delivery | Point as the customer’s cheaper choice |
| Germany | Home delivery by DHL | Home delivery | Packstation as the customer’s choice; a point as default reads as second-rate |
| Austria | Home delivery by Post | Home delivery | Similar to Germany |
| Italy | Home delivery; lockers growing | Home delivery | Collection culture weaker than in France |
| United Kingdom | Home delivery; lockers and shops growing | Home delivery | InPost lockers and shop networks as the customer’s choice |
The practical consequence: one default for your whole store is wrong somewhere. For France and Belgium the point is the default and the door the paid option; for Germany and the Netherlands the reverse. If you want certainty for your own customers, offer both at no price difference for a month and look at what they choose.
Where you can offer either form from local stock — that is, where a domestic service exists at a rate a shop will pay — is read from the live rate card, and today that is:
- Austria
- Belgium
- France
- Germany
- Italy
- Netherlands
- Spain
What fails, and who pays for it
- Door: not at home. The courier returns, or leaves the parcel with a neighbour or at a point. For you: a customer who calls, and sometimes a parcel sitting at a point the customer does not know about. The cost is the carrier’s, so it is in the rate.
- Point: the customer never comes. The parcel waits about a week and is returned to sender — with fulfilment from local stock, back to your sender. For you: a return shipment and a customer who usually still wants the item. The cost is yours, because a return is a shipment.
- Locker: full or too small. The parcel is diverted to a nearby point and the customer gets a different message than expected. Rare, but confusing.
The hidden cost of the point
A pickup point shifts risk from the carrier to you: uncollected parcels come back as returns. For a cheap, high-volume product that does not outweigh the lower rate. For an expensive item ordered once a week it does — there, a signature at the door is worth more.
The rule for your default
- Pickup point as default in countries where it is the norm and where the customer did not explicitly pay for home delivery at checkout.
- Home delivery where the customer chose it, where it is the norm, or where the product is expensive or fragile.
- Lockers offered wherever the carrier has many; it is the point without opening hours, and customers who tried it once choose it again.
- One default for all countries. What is normal in Amsterdam is a complaint in Lyon.
- A point as default for large or heavy parcels. Points refuse them and your order stalls.
- Home delivery as default "to avoid the risk". The risk moves into the rate, which you pay on every order.
How to set it when a sender packs for you
Check which services your sender can offer
A sender ticks their own carriers and points. Their profile shows whether they can hand over at a point, a locker, or both. Without a point service at their carrier, the point is not an option with them.
Choose a default per product and per country
Under the product you see, per sender and destination country, the available services: point or locker, home, standard or express. Choose by the table above, per country.
Align your checkout
Show, per shipping zone, the option that matches your default, and offer the other as a paid choice. Then a customer never picks something that contradicts your default.
With Shopify, let orders run themselves
Every paid order follows the default for its product and country; the sender buys the label with that service and the customer gets tracking from Shopify. See a Shopify fulfilment app without a warehouse.
After a month, look at the returns
Uncollected parcels are the cost of the point. If they are more than a few percent, home delivery is the better default for that product or country after all.
Two countries where this decision matters most are covered on their own: how to ship to Germany without a German warehouse, where the door is the norm, and France, where the point is — see how to ship to France without a French warehouse.
Frequently asked questions
Is a pickup point cheaper than home delivery?
With almost every carrier, yes, because there is no doorstep attempt that can fail. How much cheaper differs by country and carrier; current rates are on /en/shipping-options.
Which European countries prefer pickup points?
France, Belgium and increasingly Spain treat the point as normal and choose it at checkout. Germany, the Netherlands, Austria and Italy expect home delivery, with Germany’s DHL Packstation as the accepted alternative.
What happens if a customer does not collect from a pickup point?
The parcel waits about a week and is returned to sender — with local stock, to your sender. That is a return shipment, and therefore a cost to you.
What is the difference between a pickup point and a parcel locker?
A point is a shop with opening hours where the customer collects with a code or ID. A locker is a machine with no opening hours, opened with a code. Prices are usually the same; lockers have a size limit per compartment.
Can I send a large parcel to a pickup point?
Often not: points and lockers have size limits and refuse large or heavy parcels. For large parcels, home delivery is the default.
How do I set this when someone else packs my orders?
Choose one default service per product and destination country — point, locker or home. Every order for that combination follows it; with Shopify that happens automatically once the order is paid.
Sources
The rate says who pays. The direction says who moves. The second decides the first, not the other way round.
See which services exist in each country and what they cost
Shipping options