Our Story

We’re Dave and Robert — two Canadians from Vancouver who spent far too many weekends stuck in border lineups. Back in the early 2000s we started doing what plenty of British Columbians do: shipping our US online orders to Point Roberts, the corner of Washington State you can only drive to through Canada.

We loved the convenience but kept running into the same wall — limited hours, crowded counters, and the rush to grab a parcel before closing time. We figured there had to be a better way to run a parcel service, so we decided to build it ourselves.

In October 2013 we bought the building at 145 Tyee Drive. Then we spent the better part of a year researching automated locker systems from every corner of the world — Europe, South Korea, China, and the USA — comparing hardware, software, and what it would take to run completely self-serve.

When the lockers finally arrived in October 2014 — three 40-ft high-cube containers, installed as 140 locker clusters — it was a genuine leap of faith. The locker hardware and the software behind it ended up costing more than the building itself. We were betting that people would happily pick up their own packages, on their own schedule, if we just got out of their way.

That bet paid off. Since launching in November 2014, In Out Parcel has grown into a busy virtual mailbox and parcel-pickup hub for cross-border shoppers across the Lower Mainland and Greater Vancouver — all built around automated lockers you can open any hour of any day, 365 days a year.

More than a decade on, the promise hasn’t changed: a real US shipping address, packages handled with care, and no lineups. Thanks for being part of the story.

— Dave & Robert, In Out Parcel