ARTICLES March 28th, 2022
Click and Collect – Curbside pickup
Published on September 17, 2020 | George Katiniotis
BOPIS (Buy-online-purchase-in-store) is the preferred method for customers living in the same city as the shops, especially in big cities, as customers do not like to wait a couple days receiving their order. Neither they like being locked inside their house waiting for the delivery guy to arrive, nor paying the extra fee for this service. They also have the insurance of checking by themselves the ordered product/s before receiving them, eliminating any disappointments and return procedures. Or they may have forgotten to add something else they need to their cart. BOPIS benefits also retailers as customers go in-store to pick up their order, they may be tempted to look around and buy more products, it’s the perfect opportunity for increased up-sells.
In the new era of COVID-19 and the new norm of social distancing measures, Curbside pickup started to be the preferred method. They eliminate queues, overcome the maximum customers capacity limits inside stores, provide contact-free transactions. Online grocers in USA, like Walmart, Ahold Delhaize, Target and many others as well as in other countries invest in thousands of new automatic or manual delivery stations.
Pickup lockers are not exactly a new option in Retail. Their high replenishment cost and limited capacity make them not profitable. Therefore, automatic solutions appeared in many markets. Lately robotic solutions appeared and is seems to be the way forward. As Jon Springer mentions in his June 25, 2020 article in Winsight Grocery Business site (https://www.winsightgrocerybusiness.com/technology/future-click-collect), this is the Future of Click-and-collect, and new generation of touch-free robotic pickup lockers are already delivered by a handful of providers.
Today Robotic technology is mature enough to offer to retailers ROIs of a few months. Use of robotics could be a as well a marketing tool. An awesome customer experience is also guaranteed as the delivery times are minimum, especially if they are connected with Retailers Delivery orchestration SW platforms. They also accept cash and NFC contactless cards/smartphones in cases that customers did not pay in advance offering a complete payment experience.
Curbside pickup is here to stay and the robotic technology will further increase the usage of it.
