Click and Collect: a winning strategy for your business!
Are you looking to implement a Click and Collect strategy? This principle of online reservation or e-reservation is now well known: customers visiting your site can reserve a product on the web (click), then go to the selected shop to collect it (collect). Offering this service means reaching consumers who are increasingly inclined to use new technologies during their shopping experience.
With the digital transformation of businesses, retailers are increasingly adopting "phygital" strategies. By blurring the boundaries between the web and the physical shop, they can create a complete, multi-channel shopping experience. Click and Collect is a successful alliance between e-commerce and local commerce, based on a web-to-store approach (from the digital space to the physical world).
Free and convenient for consumers, efficient and generating opportunities for retailers, this system has it all! But what are the issues involved and what are the keys to successful and effective implementation? We'll find out in this article.
Click and Collect: definition
What is click and collect?
Click and Collect is a purchasing method that gives customers the option of reserving or ordering products available in shop online, and then going to the physical shop they have selected to collect them.
Only shops that have the product in stock will be offered as a collection point to the Internet user.
Click and collect: e-reservation vs in-store collection
This principle is similar to online sales, but here we are talking more about e-reservation. In fact, it's not the equivalent of buying online: no online payment, the customer only takes out their bank card at a later stage, in shop.
💡 Please note: this is not the same principle as in-store collection. With this method of purchase, the product is made available to the consumer at a relay point within a few days of placing an order from the e-commerce stock. In other words, the product is delivered from another stock item to a collection point of the customer' s choice.
How does click and collect work?
Click and Collect combines the advantages of e-commerce with those of the point of sale.
In practice, the process involves the following stages:
- The customer wants to make an e-booking: they go to your brand's website.
- They select the product of their choice on the product page.
- They click on the product and are presented with the option "Reserve for free in shop" or a similar expression for "Click and Collect".
- Once they have selected this option, a pop-up window opens showing the shops near them that have the chosen product in stock, thanks to a geolocation system.
- All the customer has to do is choose the nearest shop and the time that suits them best to collect their goods.
- Once the online order has been placed, payment is made in-store at the time of collection.
All this takes place in a particularly short space of time, which implies real-time management of shop stock and the technical resources to ensure it runs smoothly.
Examples of click and collect: Darty, Sephora, Decathlon and Bricorama
Click and Collect Darty
➡️ Household appliances, electronics and cultural products
Darty registered the term Click and Collect in 2009. Not only is this service offered, but Darty goes so far as to encourage customers to take advantage of it with a reward scheme: a €5 discount is applied to certain products purchased via Click and Collect.
Darty
Click and Collect Sephora
➡️ Beauty
The brand's promise is to be able to collect purchases free of charge within two hours in shop.
Sephora
Click and Collect Decathlon
➡️ Sport and leisure
With its "Click and Collect" service, the brand offers one-hour collection when the product is available in the chosen shop. This is just one of a number of delivery options available to customers: standard delivery, 24-hour or 48-hour delivery, Colissimo or parcel post, Mondial Relay, letterbox delivery, etc.
Decathlon
Click and Collect Bricorama
➡️ DIY, decoration and gardening
Bricorama offers free in-store collection, with the option of collecting your order from your chosen Bricorama store within two hours. An order confirmation, followed by a collection code, is sent by email and text message when the order is available.
Bricorama
Tools for an effective Click and Collect service
Do you have a Click and Collect project for your store? Let's take a look at the tools that can help you set it up, to make the purchasing process easier.
You want to :
- optimise omnichannel customer relations:
- What for? To provide product information, improve brand communication by providing customers with a direct, responsive and personalised response, and encourage interaction across all channels;
- The RingCentral Experience Client online interaction management platform.
- offer the Click and Collect option on your e-commerce site:
- bridging the gap between the physical shop and the e-commerce site, offering different delivery options (express delivery, home delivery, relay point or in-store collection), online ordering and online booking;
- Which tool? The Prestashop ready e-commerce site creation tool.
- manage stocks and sales in real time:
- What for? To have real-time visibility of your store's stocks, and therefore of product availability, to synchronise information between the e-commerce site and the point of sale, and to reduce order preparation time;
- Which tool? Stock management software.
Customer satisfaction just a click away
The key to an effective Click and Collect service is to meet strong customer demand for instant availability of the goods they want. To guarantee customer satisfaction, the online reservation, real-time stock management and order preparation systems need to be optimised.
Are you planning to set up a Click and Collect service for your business? If you have already set it up, how are you optimising it?
Article translated from French