Growing Trend of Click & Collect

Undoubtedly one of the major obstacles when buying online is the cost & speed of delivery. In Ireland this has always been an issue with small items often costing more in delivery than the item itself, and large items? forget about it. Click & Collect is the growing trend of businesses allowing customers to purchase online and collect offline. Superquinn as ever are on the ball, already up and running with two stores utilising click & collect.

Elsewhere, click & collect is exploding in countries like France, which is no surprise as they have been early adapters with steady investment over the past decade. Websites like ChronoDrive, AuchanDrive, E.Leclerc Drive and supermarket giant Carrefour are all making significant investment in this area. Together ChronoDrive and AuchanDrive have almost 40 drive-in locations with a commitment to double that number this year alone.

The reason that this has become popular in France and in general is one of convenience. Purchasing online allows you to take advantage of tools like shopping lists, comparisons and the ability to quickly purchase the items you need. Getting in your car and driving to a pick up point allows shoppers to organise and schedule collection when it suits them. This is an important distinction to the home delivery service where you are required to be at home to receive the goods. It makes shopping easier and more convenient, French stores have noticed this and have suitably adjusted to their customers needs.

While the idea might be relatively new to Europe, Walmart in the US have had success with their implementation of Site-to-Store. Others are sure to follow Walmart’s lead, and a recent report in North America shows that over 1/3 of stores are planning to implement a similar service before the end of this year.

Adoption of click & collect has been a little slow in Ireland with the uptake mainly among electronic stores like Komplett, Elara, D.I.D Electrical and I suppose Argos reserve and collect follows the principle anyway.

Buying bulky items online and then collecting them is a natural progression where delivery costs can be significant, for example delivery of an item like a TV can cost anywhere from €20-50 depending on the store. The real shift will be from once off purchases to everyday ones like groceries, just like Superquinn above. It won’t be long before Tesco offer a similar service here as they are already trialling in the UK and also have the advantage of their Tesco Direct online store.

Other supermarkets here very slowly made the move to listing their products and offers online, again only really  Tesco are making a significant effort allowing you to buy online with home delivery. A quick survey from friends and twitterfolk shows a mixed bag in terms of Tesco service (concerns over fresh items and replacement products). While other chains offer an online ordering service, it doesn’t appear like any have made the important move to promote their offering.

The days of not having a fully up to date website which is integrated with your bricks and mortar store are already numbered, over the next few years it may well be the one factor that kills your business.

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