Porch Piracy | Pitney Bowes

Nextdoor, the popular micro-neighborhood social networking platform has more than 10 million registered users, spread across 100,000 neighborhoods. In addition to complaints about barking dogs and the neighbor who left their trash cans out too long, it is rife with reports of package thieves, often caught on hidden doorbell cameras.

Porch pirates make for a good news cycle. And with the rise in packages being delivered, it makes sense that a crime of opportunity—and one that is so quick and easy to perpetrate—would draw concern from online shoppers.

Consumers are taking porch piracy seriously: 7 in 10 believe it is a problem that needs to be solved ASAP.

There aren’t significant differences in how different demographic groups perceive the problem – all are similar, except:

The older consumer, the more urgency: 75% of Baby Boomers say it’s a problem vs. only 56% of Gen Z
Women (72%) are slightly more likely than men (67%) to consider it an urgent problem
Surprisingly, there are no significant differences between urban, suburban, and rural residents or among income brackets (all fall in the 68-70% range)

Percentage of consumers who are taking porch piracy seriously, chart

Yet only 1 in 5 consumers have experienced porch piracy themselves. 1 in 3 know someone who has had a package stolen, implying this is a collective fear that is shared among consumers’ social graphs.

Urban consumers, often notorious for their lack of porches, are nearly twice as likely as suburban and rural consumers to have experienced porch piracy (29% vs 16%)

As a result of this fear, 52% of consumers are taking proactive steps to address porch piracy. They fall into three categories:

Apparently have a lot of time on their hands: More than 1 in 3 (38%) watch delivery drivers through their windows
Want to throw money at the problem: 1 in 4 (24%) install a video/smart doorbell or other security (likely the same ones who plant a glitter bomb decoy package to foil the thieves)
Looking for a reason to leave the house: Less than 1 in 5 (18%) choose to pick up packages at a store or other location

BOXpoll™ by Pitney Bowes, a weekly consumer survey on current events, culture, and ecommerce logistics. Conducted by Pitney Bowes with Morning Consult //2094 US consumers surveyed November 2020.© Copyright 2020 Pitney Bowes Inc.