Rising Trend for Buy Online & Pick-up In-store – an Opportunity to grow for B2C E-commerce Industry

New trend in e-commerce shopping in these days is all about making the purchase online via e-commerce website and mobile application but instead of home delivery get your goods picked-up from the store location – a concept known as Buy Online, Pick-up In-Store – BOPIS.

Why to “Buy Online & Pick-up In-store”?

BOPIS Concept is the combination of two different mode of shopping i.e. online shopping and offline shopping. Each has its own wins and pitfalls. Online Shopping offers ease of shopping from the comfort of our home, convenient access, you can order at anytime from anywhere from the device of your choice. You also can make the research about the market, products and pricing and then determine the seller to choose and platform to buy from all this without going out of your home.

Online ecommerce sites does provides the ease in product availability by delivering it at your doorstep but here one also has to wait for few days to get it delivered and doesn’t work well when you’re in quick need. Also, it charges handsome bucks for shipping at your doorstep. Offline mode could be convenient in this sense but it asks for sheer waste of time in looking for the product in store, standing in queue for billing etc. Buy Online and Pick up in-store will help you to overcome the disadvantages of both the platform by allowing you to shop online and get your goods picked-up quickly from store without wasting your time with ready package and dedicated Pick-up stores.

How BOPIS works?

There are lot many companies who have implemented the concept in very well manner and is doing successful.

Here, in this new trending concept called BOPIS, customers can search for the products they want online either on company websites, mobile application or at marketplaces. When Customer goes to any particular e-commerce site and searches for the required product it showcase the product images, features, product contents, cost etc at the first stage. Customer then decides the product they want to buy and clicks on ‘BUY’ to make order of it. At check-out process one has to fill the details regarding payment method, mode of delivery etc. So, at the mode of delivery step while doing check out one finds the option for “Pick-up In store” . For the one who wants to pick-up the products from the store can select that option and specify the conveneint sore from where they’ll pick-up the goods. Here, the products that are available for Pick-in store mode will show ‘Pick-up in-store’ option at check-out process. Once the order is made with BOPIS, the retailer arranges for the product from the inventory and makes the product ready in very few hours say 2 to 3 hours of purchase made and once it is ready for the delivery they sends email notification to the customer with the subject called “product is ready for pick-up” specifying the store location. Customers can then visit and collect the product by showcasing their ID proof and the email. As simple as that!

IKEA, one such example for BOPIS –

(Image Source – IKEA)

Excited about In-store Pick-up facility? There are lot many reasons that people chooses BOPIS concept are –

• Same Day Pick-up Alternative

With this alternative, you can get the Products on the same day and avoid 2-3 days of extra time to get it delivered at home. Very helpful when you’re in urgent need of the product and couldn’t wait for product delivery!

• No Shipping Cost

According to the research, 65% of people choose this method to avoid heavy shipping fees. This is mostly chosen by the ones having pick-up stores near to their location.

• Ease of return

Customers can view and check the products at Pick-up store, if it’s not as expected or not fitting to the requirement then one can have the option to return it at the store itself. This reduces the extra efforts of applying for return online and transit time taken by executive to pick-up and exchange if any.

• Convenient mode of Pick-up

It is easy for the people to pick-up the product in very few minutes enabling quick purchase of products. Nearby locations made them to choose this alternative. 29% of people said that they chose this alternative because of convenience.

• Attractive discounts for in-store purchase

Omni-channel sellers offer attractive discounts to customers to shop from in-store. When customer select in store pick-up they tend to get more discounts or gift vouchers, entice shoppers to choose it.

BOPIS Trend and Forecast –

The concept at its infancy level tends to grow faster with the high ratio of people willing to accept the new trend.

(Image Source: Nielsen)

Essentials to excite customers for BOPIS –

Customers will choose the alternative only if they’ll get benefitted from it considering all the aspects. What essential factors are there which e-commerce owners have to give importance for smooth In-store pick-up mode?

• Dedicated Pick-up store facility
• Quick In and Out process
• No waiting time
• Designated Parking slots
• Signage and guidelines for Pick-up
• Ease of locating pick-up

Walmart is one such store provides great In-store pick-up facility to customers. It has separate pick-up store with quick signage and guidelines. It does provide dedicated parking slots to customers that allow reducing time in transit.

If the normal retailer store and pick-up store would be same, it will take as much time as one can take for shopping in-store. That will not give any benefit. There should be different departments for each section for ease. So to improve more in-store pick-up, retailers must have to maintain this with consistency.

To name a few – Target, Mecy’s, Home Depot, Lowe’s are performing very well and catch-up the trend.

Challenges in availing In-store Pick-up:

Retailers will definitely get benefitted with the new model if planned very well. Such concept is getting failures due to

• Poor Implementation
• Lack of Local Pick-up stores
• Hassles in in-store pick-up

Staff with lack of training and support leaves very bad impression on customers. This leads towards dissatisfaction.

Stores need to manage and integrate Online and offline inventory in order to make the process ease. With most of the products not available with this option force buyers skip this alternative. There should also be integration among nearby stores in order to fulfill the shoppers need. Finding improper implementation leads towards failure.

It is tough for e-commerce stores who have the warehouses only and not offline store purchase facility. They need to build offline store, if not pick-up store to provide this facility takes time and of course need the investment.

The concept would be annoying for –

• It is not suitable for the shoppers who want goods to be delivered at their preferred location; there are 82% such people
• Do not have pick-up store nearby
• Products not available in local store

On the other hand, the concept is very helpful to the one who face challenges in driving traffic to the offline store. Based on the survey, it was identified that people tend to buy something extra while going for in-store pick-up increases sales. There are retailers offering huge discounts to shoppers choosing in store pick-up. Increased in-store footfalls will definitely enrich the sales ratio.

In nutshell

It is a decisive role to be performed by e-commerce owners to convert customers integrating both the channel. Definitely giving benefits to both the parties involved, it requires great planning and execution to create enriching experience and lead towards success. Enjoy buying online with your most convenient mode and overcome its drawbacks with In-store Pick-up mode.

MobiCommerce

MobiCommerce is a leading end-to-end eCommerce software solutions provider. Known for developing scalable and feature-rich Marketplaces, eCommerce websites, mobile apps, and Progressive Web Apps (PWAs), MobiCommerce boasts of being more feature-rich and fast as compared to its competitors. It has a steady clientele from the GCC and Europe.