ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic and movement control order that started in 2020 has changed the shopping behavior to online shopping. This also increases in-home delivery services by the shipping providers. However, since the virus can be transmitted through surface transmission, the buyer is advised to avoid touching surfaces and clean or sanitize surfaces regularly with standard disinfectants to prevent the spread. In addition, with an increase in the parcel delivery process, missing parcels also will be one of the main problems that the buyer will be facing. This study has developed a smart parcel box with sanitizer to overcome the issues stated above. Smart in this context refers to the notification that the buyer will get once the parcel is placed inside the parcel box, the box itself will be locked once the parcel is in and only can be opened by the authorized user. This study utilizes the Arduino IDE software to control the operation of the locks and notifications. The notifications are linked to the Blynk Application that needs to be installed on the buyer's smartphone. The software is also coded to run the motor that controls the standard disinfectants that will be sprayed on the parcel for a few seconds. The results indicate one solution for the online shopping addicts to shop while avoiding the spread of COVID-19 viruses. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.