Web-to-store continues to be emulating. Among the many elements that define it, the click and collect phenomenon today appears to be an essential element of a cross-channel strategy. And it is not the more than 72% of large French businesses that have already implemented it(1) who will say the opposite: 2016 is the year that has democratised click and collect among small merchants, who are today only 23% to have implemented it.
For those who have just emerged from a long hibernation phase, click and collect is a simple process which consists of a consumer reserving a product online and then picking it up in store. This is not a simple in-store pickup option where the product would be available within several days. Here, the consumer orders the product then is offered various points of sale near their place of residence where they can come and collect their product without delay.
Not convinced of the benefits of implementing a click and collect service in your store? Let us give you a little anthology of reasons why the question is not if you should put one in place but when you should do it.
1. Click and collect is a high value-added service
Click and collect is a vector of satisfaction for the consumer since it appeared following a change in their mode of consumption, now favouring speed and flexibility. By linking the advantages of e-commerce to those of traditional store commerce, including the possibility of seeing and touching the product before purchasing, it constitutes real added value for the customer… Relatively inexpensive for the merchant. Indeed, the technology necessary to set up such a service is inexpensive and today widely available.
2. Click and collect increases in-store flows and the average basket
Offering a click and collect service means enjoying the main advantage of web-to-store, namely bringing traffic to the store. And more than traffic, it is a qualified clientele who, for 62%(2), will visit the shelves and thus generate additional sales. Result: 26% purchase other items in store for a final basket 45% larger than the initial order! This is why 66% of stores offering a click and collect service report making additional sales.
3. Click and collect is popular with the customer
This is obvious, but it should be emphasised. Today, 43% of consumers have already used a click and collect service and 85% plan to do so in the future(1). This plebiscite makes them demanding, which is why 15% of them would even have turned to another brand if click and collect had not been offered among the delivery possibilities. What advantages do they see in it? 43% favour the free aspect of the service, 19% the speed, 18% the practical side and 15% the certainty of getting the right product(2).
However, offering click and collect is not enough; it is also necessary to comply with customer expectations in terms of added services. For example, 61% would request an alert warning of the availability of the product, 60% an easier return of the product, 54% a collection without a queue and 28% a collection in less than a minute(2), the type of complaints that require a real deployment strategy to reap the benefits of click and collect</span><span style=”font-weight: 400;”>.
RoverCash knows how to do all this. As a real concentrate of functionalities focused on connected comerce, click and collect is designed to make its implementation in your store as simple and efficient as possible. Associated with the LMB commercial management software, the touchscreen checkout for tablet and smartphone receives information from your e-commerce site and indicates to your salesperson that such an order was placed by such and such a customer at such and such a time. All that remains is to find the product available in stock and serve the customer once they arrive in the store.
Some companies across the Atlantic are already thinking further. CVS, a pharmacy giant, for example, allows its customers to order a product on its mobile application before picking it up in store. So far, nothing innovative. Except that by combining the principle of click and collect with that of geolocation, the customer no longer has to stop and get out of his car, an employee comes directly to take him to his car as soon as he sees that the customer approaches the store. A service that really saves time and uses technology to benefit customers, we love at LUNDI MATIN.
(1) Study carried out by INSEE
(2) Study carried out by Neopost ID
