A mystery shopper survey conducted by Chicago-based e-commerce consulting firm The E-tailing Group shows that half of the retailers surveyed had products ordered online ready for pick-up in their stores the same day.
“Overall, we found that [the order online, pick up in the store] feature was very well executed,” E-tailing Group president Lauren Freedman said in a statement. “Pick-up locations were clearly designated, 90% of the time products were readily available, and transactions typically took less than five minutes to complete.”
Freedman composed a checklist of suggestions for retailers that offer in-store pickup on Web orders:
* Train your personnel in how your store pick-up process works.
* Make it free to deliver the product to the store.
* Provide customers with clear instructions on the pick-up process, including information on how many days the product will be held and store hours.
* Alert customers by e-mail when merchandise is ready for store pick-up.
* Have a designated customer service area for pick-ups and adequately man those counters with trained personnel.
* Store packages in a specific location known to all customer service personnel.
* Encourage shoppers to make additional purchases while visiting the store.
* Facilitate an easy return should the merchandise not be right for the customer.