When retailers ponder what omni-channel initiatives they should do first – BOPIS (buy online pickup in-store) is hotly debated. Is our store inventory accurate enough? Will the associates deliver outstanding service to the customers coming in to pick up the products? Will taking them away from selling duty impact the store’s sales? Should I make it easy for the customer to find the pick-up location? Or should we “encourage” customers to walk through the store in order to get to their purchase? And in the case of apparel retailers — should we facilitate the trying on of the product and try to up sell the customer while they are in the store? And of course, should we charge the consumers credit card when they place the order our only when they pick up the product?
I’ve participated in those discussions and I will tell you they are not always customer-centric. I have in the last year, taken advantage of BOPIS at a number of North American retailers and wanted to share with you my experiences.
Let’s first consider why most consumers use BOPIS. Almost all of us use the web to research any significant purchase. But only 10-20% of sales are completed online in North America. There is still transactional friction with online shopping — the consumer may want the product immediately, may not want to pay for shipping fees, or may be worried about the return process.
BOPIS helps solve all that and facilitates a seamless consumer journey from online shopping to buying to finally acquiring the product. It’s a great way to close the sale. From a consumers standpoint, if well executed, it’s the best of online and in-store features.
Here are my 8 tips to ensuring a great customer experience and building long term loyalty using BOPIS:
- Be upfront on your web site with when the product will be available for me to pickup (consumers will expect no more than 2-3 hours in most cases)
- Send me an email or text when the product is ready for pick-up
- Tell me ahead of time where I need to go and what I need to do when I come in-store
- Have signs in store telling me where I can pick up the merchandise (and please don’t put it in the back of the store if you are a big box or department store)
- If I am picking up clothing, have space available close by for me to try it on before I leave
- I don’t love the product, help me with an alternative or make it easy for me to return/cancel my transaction
- If I’m picking up something heavy or bulky, have an established process to help me get it to my car
- Ensure the sales associates treat me as well as if I was shopping in-store
Still wondering if you should implement BOPIS as part of your commerce strategy? In addition to the customer engagement benefit, BOPIS is a great way to leverage your inventory asset and drive huge savings in fulfillment and shipping costs. Many retailers I have spoken with who implemented it saw nice increases in web conversion rates and in some cases up to 50% of their web sales became BOPIS. In the epitomic words of Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross – Always be closing.
Read about specific BOPIS experiences here.
Nathalie Belanger 
Nice article. I believe Best Buy in the US uses the strategies that you have outlined. Their website let’s you search for the product you like, lists the stores that have it in stock and what day you can pick up. Once purchased you get an order confirmation that tells you to wait for the in-store ready confirmation (tells you the estimated processing time) and what information to bring when you pick up the order. Once you go to the store the pickup counter is now near the regular registers or customer service. I normally go into the store and browse for other products because I already know from entering the store where to pick up my order. If I didn’t know where to go in the store to pick up my order I would more than likely spend my time looking for that, rather than browse around for other products.
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Best Buy is indeed an example. I plan on writing about specific retailer experiences shortly – come back and visit!
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