Joining a growing group of retailers eager to match the heightened expectations of today’s shoppers and save on delivery costs, young women’s apparel seller rue21 has partnered with Mastek to offer buy online pickup in store (BOPIS) at its 700+ store locations.
The rollout began in January and is expected to be completed by the end of this month.
“Our customers are young, mobile and know what they want, whether that is fashion or flexibility,” said rue21 Chief Analytics Officer Mark Chrystal in a release. “We developed this mobile-first offering with our customers in mind and they have loved the ease of buying and trying clothes across channels.”
The project involved website design, an OMS selection and integration with the ecommerce system and customer service tools. The design and custom solution met the requirements of rue21’s ecommerce and store operations teams, including real-time reporting and custom dashboards.
“The technical complexity that was delivered by Mastek involved significant customization of critical systems and was well-executed,” said Carl Abel, Senior Director of Applications at rue21 in the release. “The phased approach allows us to offer an exceptional customer experience that exposes the information our customers need at the time they need, regardless of channel.”
MCM Musings: Retailers like rue21 are finding customers react positively to BOPIS, with about 30% of them making ancillary purchases while in store. Yet recent research by OrderDynamics found of over 700 U.S. retailers studied, only 27% offer BOPIS, placing it last among seven major markets. This was surprising given all the attention paid to the capability and its growing popularity among shoppers. While other studies have found figures of up to 50%, OrderDynamics notes many polled retail executives, while their research tested companies by placing orders. OrderDynamics will share more results from its omnichannel study at Ecommerce Operations Summit 2019, April 9-11 in Columbus, OH.