Thinking of Offering Buy Online - Pickup In Store? Make Sure to Take the Following Into Consideration
Tuesday, June 11, 2019Eric Zegarski
Here's What You Need to Consider Before Offering In-Store Pickup As An Option For eCommerce Customers
You may have noticed that major retailers like Walmart are now offering the ability to buy online and pick up in-store. Walmart goes further than most and allows you to select a pickup time. In addition, they even bring your order right to your car. Before you jump the gun and begin offering pickup at your store(s), there are a lot of factors that you need to consider and develop a solid strategy to ensure it goes smoothly.
Are You ready to Capitalize on Foot Traffic?
Offering your customers convenience is great! But now you must brace yourself for an increase of foot traffic to your location(s). This is a great opportunity to capitalize on the added influx of human visitors. You get to have a one on one human interaction that would not have been possible without store pickup. This presents an opportunity to offer great customer service. In addition, since sales is king, it’s the opportune moment to offer an upsell or an impulse purchase. Basically, you need to be able to ask, “would you like fries with that?”
Are You Ready Hold More Stock?
With store pickup as an option, you have two options when it comes to fulfilling them. The first is to pull stock off your shelves and hold it for pickup orders. The second is holding safety stock in case there is an influx of pickup orders in the back of your shop. Either way you need to have your finger on the pulse when it comes to your reorder points and lead times in relation to acquiring more inventory. In addition, you will need to ensure you have adequate storage space to handle the increase of physical goods at your store(s).
Create Preemptive Shortage Procedures
Offering store pickup becomes a challenge on the store level. As soon as something is pulled off the shelf for an online order, inventory must be updated in real time. This ensures that other shoppers do not purchase online for pickup when there is no more inventory. It’s best practice to show an item unavailable for store pickup when inventory is running low vs when the product is out of stock. This ensures that any foot traffic to the store can still purchase the sought-after product. Afterall, they did go out of their way to pay you a visit.
Establish a Great Pickup Experience
You want your guests to feel welcomed when they come to pick up their purchase. You don’t want it to seem like an inconvenience that they are coming in to pick up their order. The first step you can take is make sure that all staff (including yourself) know where pickup orders are being held until pickup. This ensures that customers get their order fast. In addition, you should have a dedicated pickup section for orders that is clearly visible. This ensures that your customers know where to go to pick up their orders and employees can be attentive and service them right away. It’s also best practice to include pickup instructions in the purchase conformation email. This way customers know what information they need to provide upon pickup.
Unleash the Power of Your ERP With Integration
When offering in-store pickup, utilizing your ERP solution properly will enable you to ensure everything goes smoothly. With instantaneous inventory updates, you’ll be able to manage your reorder points more accurately to ensure you always have stock on hand. Furthermore, these instantaneous updates will prevent you from selling any products that are dangerously close of being out of stock.
An
ERP and
eCommerce integration ensures that sales and inventory data is instantaneously communicated bidirectionally between both systems. The eBridge Connections iPaaS solution is universal, meaning it works with all major ERP and eCommerce systems. eBridge is also hosted on Microsoft Azure, therefore ensuring an almost 99.9% uptime and industry leading security. With an integration solution, you can ensure that your commerce network has an automated solution that will streamline your fulfillment process.