United Parcel Service Inc. will install lockers outside 300 retailers in the U.S. as the shipping giant expands it use of alternate delivery sites. 
 
 The move expands UPS’s experiment with outdoor lockers at nine Chicago-area locations, which were typically placed outside of retailers and accessible around the clock. The company is working with the 7-Eleven convenience-store chain and independent stores to offer the new lockers. 
 
 The program lets customers pick up packages at their own convenience while eliminating the need for UPS to make costly second and third home-delivery attempts. The rollout marks an expansion of UPS’s Access Point program, which until now generally recruited local retailers and pharmacies to receive packages and store them indoors. The company now has 8,000 such locations in the U.S. and 16,000 in Europe. 
 
 “UPS Access Point lockers can be easily accessed when it fits the shopper’s schedule, giving an online retailer added value to present at checkout,” Kalin Robinson, director of the locker program, said in a statement Thursday. “The lockers enable more shoppers to enjoy the ease and simplicity of buying online.” 

 UPS (UPS) may be enjoying record delivery volumes, but that can mean headaches for customers. 
 
 With more Americans ordering products from online retailers such as Amazon (AMZN) or Apple (AAPL), consumers are often at the mercy of UPS. There may be nothing more frustrating than coming home to a "delivery attempt" notice on your door, and having to wait another day for the UPS truck to make it down your street. That prompted UPS to try a self-service "smart locker" program in 2014, testing whether customers would want to pick up packages if they weren't home for delivery. 
 
 UPS says it's expanding the trial from its initial test in Chicago to more than 300 locations across the country, in an attempt to help customers who want to get their deliveries faster. Of course, it makes business sense for the delivery service, since asking customers to meet the company halfway cuts down on delivery time, resulting in lower labor and gas costs. The UPS smart lockers are located outside convenience stores and are accessible to customers 24 hours a day, the company said. 
 
 The lockers can be "easily accessed when it fits the shopper's schedule," Kalin Robinson, director of the UPS Access Point locker program, said in a statement. 
 
 The rollout started last month, with the company expanding the lockers within Illinois and to New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Washington state. It will also plans to add smart lockers to California, Florida, Georgia, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey and Texas. 
 
 The company said that drivers will leave delivery notices if a customer isn't home, telling them where their nearest Access Point lockers are located. 
 
 The smart lockers come with an ATM-like kiosk where customers scan their "delivery attempt" notice and their government ID. The locker that holds their package then unlocks for them. The process takes less time than getting cash at an ATM, the company said. 
 
 The smart locker expansion comes at a time when some delivery services are struggling to keep up with demand at busy times, such as the holidays. This past holiday season, on-time delivery rates for UPS plunged in early December, a reminder of the 2013 holiday season when both UPS and FedEx scrambled to keep up. Some customers complained about holiday packages arriving late. 
 
 That may be why frequent online shoppers are increasingly telling UPS that they want alternate delivery locations. More than one-third said they wanted another way to pick up their packages, up nine percentage points in two years, the company said. 
 
 The smart lockers are located at 7-Elevens and other convenience stores.
– UPS is expanding its trial Access Point program, which currently allows users to pick up packages stored in smart lockers at nine test locations in Chicago, to kiosks at 300 convenience and other stores nationwide. The company points to added convenience for shoppers who miss their delivery and prefer the option of picking up their package at a nearby store, but even the director of the UPS Access Point locker program notes that "providing additional convenient delivery locations is one of the secrets to more shopping cart conversions." Consumerist chimes in that the company benefits, too, because trying to deliver one package at a time to people who aren't home "is a lot less efficient than the business-to-business shipping that UPS was used to before Amazon Prime happened." To use a smart locker, people scan their "sorry we missed you" slip at a kiosk typically located outside convenience stores like 7-Eleven, and the door with the waiting package opens. After testing the program in Chicago, it is expanding to Illinois, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Washington state, and will next include California, Florida, Georgia, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, and Texas. CBS News reports that "it makes business sense" given more than one-third of online shoppers surveyed say they want an alternative way to pick up packages, while Bloomberg reports that the company already has 8,000 US stores that receive packages (not necessarily with smart lockers), including local retailers and pharmacies, and another 16,000 in Europe. Online retailers can even integrate the locker delivery option during the checkout process. (Check out how UPS is making its delivery routes smarter, too.)