Even with advanced delivery route optimization software helping businesses substantially reduce delivery drop windows, recipients can’t always be present for deliveries and service appointments. Roughly 5% of all deliveries don’t arrive on the first attempt, with each missed delivery costing retailers on average nearly $18. 

Factor in how failed service appointments take an average of 4.5 days to reschedule, as well, and these failed attempts substantially increase costs. This is exactly where alternative collection and drop off options can step in and make a critical difference to your ecommerce fulfillment and returns process.

What does pick up and drop off (PUDO) mean?

Alternative Pick Up and Drop Off, often shortened to PUDO, is a designated location where customers can come to collect parcels, and drop off items as part of the returns process. Typical drop off and collection sites include lockers accessible by PIN codes, as well as local stores and retailers.

Why redirect to PUDO?

By sending packages to a wide network of locations, retailers and logistics providers are able to batch numerous orders together, drop items off faster, and store them safely until collection. The meaning for consumers is lower average wait times than if orders were sent directly to the door. It also means that people can collect or drop off packages at convenient places already on their daily commute, near their home, while going to school, or even when doing their weekly grocery shopping.

Another advantage is that packages aren’t left outside, where the elements may damage the contents, or other people may take them without permission. Consequently, the alternative collection and drop off model offers consumers a balance between speed and peace of mind.

Returns

When it comes to returns, the process is slightly different: Consumers are typically sent a pre-printed label to affix to the original package, and after booking a drop off return via the courier or the retailer, they can then either leave their package at a designated store counter, or can drop off in a locker for collection.

Consumers need flexibility

The upshot here is that rather than wait at home or the office for a collection to take place sometime in a designated window of time on a given day, or going to drop off their item at a specific store, consumers are given the flexibility to select the drop off point that works for them, and go there whenever suits their schedule.

Another benefit is that when the returns point is located inside a brick-and-mortar store, the customer does not need to commit to a particular time, and instead can just drop in and drop off when convenient for them. Whenever they do come in, their package’s return label will be scanned and verified by a member of staff. After drop off, as far the customer is concerned, the rest will take care of itself.

Choices make the difference

Choices are key when it comes to PUDO. When consumers are given only a few collection and drop off locations, it may be that none of them are particularly convenient for them. But when they are able to select from a wider number, then the chances that one of them might fit into their schedule increase significantly.

Factoring in the decline of local post offices, it’s even clearer why consumers value collection and drop off locations. With the United States postal service closing offices in fringe locations in rural settings, and an average of two post offices in Britain being closed each week, consumers increasingly seek alternative ways of receiving orders.

Benefits for retailers, couriers

Spreading resources more evenly reduces overall stress. Retail fulfillment will become even more localized as organizations and couriers will continue to leverage multiple sites to fulfill orders and reduce time to delivery.

Lockers are the way ahead

With 20%+ of all ecommerce orders being returned, logistics providers are looking to include diverse options, including secure drop off and collection lockers in places such as gas stations, and face-to-face service at convenience stores, local shops, supermarkets, and nearby branches of major retailers. 

The practice has exploded in recent years. For example, one recent industry report identified more than 2.4m parcel and locker locations worldwide, including post offices. In the US alone, the smart locker market is expected to grow from $677 million in 2021 to $1,644 million by 2028.

Driving growth is the convenience of drop off and collection lockers, with over 78% of respondents in one US consumer survey finding them at least somewhat useful. And in the UK, parcel locker manufacturer InPost has forged diverse partnerships and placed lockers in transport hubs, shopping centers and supermarkets, in a bid to fit PUDO into consumers’ daily routes.

8 advantages of redirecting orders to alternative pickup or dropoff points (PUDOs):

1. Eliminate the cost of missed pickup or failed delivery attempts
2. Reduce expenses by delivering orders from multiple customers to a single location
3. Eliminate customer frustration from missed or delayed deliveries
4. Provide end-customers more flexible, convenient delivery options
5. Streamlined, swift returns for e-commerce retail to make the customer experience stress-free
6. Cut out delivery exceptions
7. Potentially reduce the number of delivery drops per truck, thereby increasing efficiency
8. Reduce carbon emissions by batch delivering to hubs rather than to numerous addresses

Offering The Right Alternative PUDO Options

There are numerous variables for deciding which drop off and collection sites will be offered to each customer, including:

Distance: Display all alternative or PUDO locations within a given radius (e.g. 3 miles) of the customer’s location.

Number of locations: Display the 5 sites closest to the original destination address.

Distance and number of locations: Display the 5 sites within a 3 mile radius of the original pickup location.

By redirecting potential missed deliveries, businesses can easily offer better customer experiences – and reduce the heavy cost of missed deliveries.

How PUDO can deliver better fulfillment experiences

For the consumer, drop off and collection networks offer a local, convenient and secure way to collect or drop off items without all the waiting at home, instead being able to work their collection or return into their daily schedule.

For retailers and couriers, reducing last mile delivery costs by eliminating failed attempts to deliver items, instead batch-delivering them to familiar hubs, is a real boon.

PUDO is becoming increasingly prominent in today’s world, so it’s important for retailers and logistics providers don’t drop the ball and plan properly in order to maximize this fulfillment method to meet modern customer expectations.

Frequently asked questions

The post PUDO: What it is, and How it Can Make Your Delivery Process More Efficient appeared first on Bringg.

This article looks at the main challenges around curbside delivery and click and collect operations, and offers best practices for creating seamless, digitized pickup experiences that increase eCommerce fulfillment capacity and business profitability.

What is curbside pickup?

Curbside pickup is a service that lets customers place an order online, then pick it up from a physical store. Upon arrival, customers wait in a specified area while a store employee brings out the order and hands it over to the consumer.

How does curbside pickup work?

What all curbside pickup operations have in common is a customer who makes a purchase online (usually from the retailer’s website). They are presented with the pickup location, or a list of which stores offer curbside pickup, either at checkout or after checkout via digital communication. When the order is ready, the customer goes to pick it up.  

The handoff looks like this: 

• An online shopper makes a purchase and marks it as a curbside pickup order
• the online order reaches a store’s POS 
• the inventory’s location is identified
• Inventory is picked or prepared for staging 
• Inventory is staged in a dedicated pickup area 
• Store staff identify the correct order (ideally when the customer has almost arrived) and take it from staging → staff transfer the order to the customer

This process leaves a tremendous room for flexibility around where customers order (on a branded site or marketplace, or in a retail location) and where they pick the order up from (in a dedicated curbside lane, or regular parking spot). What’s more, given that it is often possible to use existing resources – allocating curbside lanes in your parking lots; using existing store staff, etc. – curbside operations can be launched relatively quickly with out-of-the-box solutions. This is one reason why we’re seeing such a rapid adoption of curbside across verticals, in particular within grocery and big and bulky retail.

What does curbside pickup mean for retail stores? 

Curbside pickup was one of the fastest growing fulfillment models last year. Due in part to the continuing success of curbside and click and collect fulfillment models, companies are changing their store format, reducing the customer space to add more fulfillment space within the store. Today, 77% of retailers plan to section off in-store space dedicated to curbside pick-up and click-and-collect services. (Symphony RetailAI). 

Within the next 5 years, the last mile will become more local, with retailers offering more localized delivery options.

Curbside is not only for street-side stores; it is especially useful for retailers and restaurants with empty stores in shopping centers. These locations can become dark stores and restaurants which strictly fulfill orders via pickup alone.

In the spectrum of fulfillment options, curbside pickup – as well as click and collect, and other similar fulfillment models – are the happy medium. They allow customers the convenience of purchasing online, while maintaining the retail interaction they are familiar with, and without the additional cost and complexity of adding delivery capacity.

Like every other fulfillment model, running curbside pickup is not without its challenges.

The Challenges of Curbside

Many of these companies rolling out curbside are not taking into consideration the necessary tech capabilities to guarantee seamless operations and great pickup experiences.

Lack of unified customer experiences

It may be difficult to launch curbside across all retail locations; however, creating spotty availability will lead to confused customers who don’t understand where this service is available. They may order online assuming they can pick up orders, only to find at checkout that this option is not available in their location.

Since it’s not a good idea to launch a new solution at scale without testing it first, this mixed availability is inevitable. You will need a way to make it clear where and when curbside pickup is available before customers start the checkout process.

Limited resources

Pickup is typically limited to a handful of parking spaces. At peak times of day or year, You may find yourself limited by the amount of parking spaces available.

For example, consumers today often choose to shop at the closest local store. These local chains, often small convenience stores for staple groceries, frequently lack the infrastructure and resources to run curbside pickup.

Staff availability is another challenge. How do grocers and retailers manage staff so that they have sufficient coverage for staging and loading orders into customers’ cars to meet demand, but can scale back as demands shift – often on a daily basis?

For example, during the beginning of Covid-19, government rulings forced many brands to close a significant number of retail locations. Stores hastily shifted staff from assisting customers inside, to managing scantily-prepared curbside pickup operations. The moment regulations were lifted, these stores were once more flooded with customers – but curbside’s popularity was still evident. These stores suddenly needed to add on additional staff, without knowing how long the situation would remain stable.

This scenario applies equally to pandemics and holiday seasons; to retail and restaurant locations. Flexibly allocating and managing curbside staff is a serious challenge that must be addressed before this fulfillment model can be run efficiently.

Limited visibility

Pulling existing employees away from their regular duties to act as loaders can cause a tremendous amount of disruption and inefficiency. If they get ready to load before the customer arrives, they waste their time and clog up the operational delivery areas. Get ready too late, and they keep customers waiting and waste valuable, limited parking spaces. This also puts a strain on staff who are scrambling to fulfill both delivery and pickup orders.

Moreover, not knowing when to expect customers to arrive can lead to curbside congestion. The last thing you want is for customers to block pickup or parking spaces, or call the store because the store team did not know when they would arrive, or how to find them outside.

High customer expectations

When customers have high expectations, one bad or faulty pickup experience is more than you can afford. Waiting in line for 30 minutes to get your order loaded will frustrate even the most loyal of customers. In the example above, even a single customer kept waiting too long for their order can cause congestion and bad experiences for a dozen other customers waiting in line for pickup.

Customer and employee safety

Curbside pickup can be dangerous if the proper precautions are not in place. Do pickup staff have to weave through cars to reach the curbside customer?

The rise of contactless delivery brings additional concerns. Ask yourself, are your pickup operations truly contactless? Have you put regulations in place for how the pickup should be performed? Do you have contactless delivery technology like no-contact proof of delivery? If not, then you may be inadvertently making curbside pickup no safer than an in store pickup.

Restaurant off-premise challenges: high expectations, low visibility

Restaurants have a head-start in off-premise fulfillment, having offered some form of click and collect or ‘order ahead’ pickup for years. However, lack of visibility into the customer’s location – knowing exactly when the customer plans on arriving, or where they are in the parking lot – causes restaurant employees to waste valuable time fulfilling these orders. And even one bad experience will send a customer to competitors with shorter wait times, or more streamlined operations.

The same applies for on-demand drive thru orders, where congestion can cause customers to turn around and drive to a less crowded drive thru.

Food quality is another major concern. Without knowing exactly when the customer plans on arriving, food may sit out too long, or – worse – not be ready on time, forcing the customer to wait and take up curbside space in the parking lot. Restaurants need a way to coordinate customer arrival with food preparation.

These are just a few of the challenges surrounding curbside pickup. The right technology can not only address these challenges, but effectively turn curbside into an efficient and profitable fulfillment model.

6 Steps to Seamless Curbside Fulfillment:

1. Provide online shoppers with reliable pickup options by syncing inventory in physical stores with the online store
2. Sync picking/prepping, staging, and loading with customer arrival
3. Automatically allocate parking spots for the expected number of pickup orders
4. Direct the car to the optimal parking spot via a mobile app
5. Streamline the curbside handoff process through automation
6. Track, measure and analyze to improve service performance and efficiency

Curbside involves many players, with different roles, all of which must be seamlessly coordinated from one centralized platform. When done right, it can provide the fastest time to market for retailers looking to merge online buying with the convenience of flexible fulfillment methods.

Optimizing curbside and in store pickup operations: How to get it right

In order for this fulfillment model to generate brand loyalty and more sales, every step in the process must be seamlessly orchestrated and every resource – the online store, the actual store associate, order details, and inventory in the local retail store – connected through a dedicated curbside pickup app or retail fulfillment platform.

Here’s an example of what seamless curbside pickup looks like:

1. Scheduling a pickup order – At checkout, the retailer provides online shoppers with reliable pickup options, based on actual store capacity. This includes listing the available pickup locations and time slots per day, based on both inventory location, and retail store hours and capacity.

In order for the information to be accurate online, inventory must be tracked in real time. 

When someone is ready to buy online, chooses a pickup option, and completes online checkout, they should receive a digital order confirmation containing their order details.

2. Sync picking and prepping, staging, and loading of online orders with customer arrival – to ensure efficient, just-in-time order preparation and handoff, orders should be ready to go just as customers arrive. This prevents curbside congestion and ensures the optimal efficiency for staging and pickup staff. An app with real-time tracking (which customers can opt into) can help the retailer coordinate timing between the incoming vehicle and the available parking spaces and store associate.

3. Allocate parking spots to match the expected number of arrivals at any given time. A new designated parking spot can be added with something as simple as a sign, and a tap in the curbside app. This reduces potential congestion in the pickup area.

4. Use an app that provides both customer and store interfaces (i.e. a staff app and a mobile app for customers), which lets the store associate direct each car to the optimal pickup bay, in real-time.

5. Automate, automate, automate. Streamline the curbside handoff process through automated customer check-in, and applications which help store staff and customers easily identify the relevant order.

This is where contactless delivery and pickup solutions come into play. Make sure that your curbside service is completely contactless; customers should be directed to exactly where they need to park their car, and be told how to pay – and store teams should know exactly which vehicle they need to find, and load the order into – with no contact between them. In order for this to be done through a contactless curbside pickup flow, all communications should be digitized and automated. 

Curbside staff can confirm proof of delivery via photos, which they can send directly to the customer, as well as to operational managers.Track, Measure, and Analyze performance from each physical store and store team to to maintain a full chain of custody and improve curbside performance​.

6. Track, measure, and analyze performance from each physical store and store team to to maintain a full chain of custody and improve curbside performance​.

• See: Customer Tracking – The Technology Behind Bringg’s Curbside Solution

Each of these steps are essential to scalable, efficient pickup operations that are as efficient for your business as they are convenient for your customers.

We’ve helped some of the world’s largest retailers improve their efficiency, capacity and customer experience by optimizing every element of their curbside fulfillment, from the digital ordering, and all the way through pickup. Learn more about our curbside and click & collect software.

Frequently asked questions:

The post Curbside Pickup is Now a Must-Have Fulfillment Model. Here’s How It Works. appeared first on Bringg.

What is Click & Collect?

Click and collect is when a customer orders a product online and then picks it up in the store. Also known as buy online, pickup in store (BOPIS), this process allows for a quick and convenient pickup process, promising that the customer can receive the order as soon as possible from a nearby retail store. 

Click and collect is a form of omnichannel flow. The pickup location is usually a local retail store, but can also be a post office, a purpose-built locker or even a different retailer’s store.

What are click and collect advantages?

Click and collect allows customers to pick up in store easily, quickly, conveniently, and safely. This allows the customer to receive their order as soon as possible from a location that they choose, without having to wait for delivery or to go shopping in-person in the retail store. 

Customers benefit from the speed, low cost, and convenience of the fulfillment model. And now, with the additional concerns around health and safety, it offers a way to avoid shopping in crowded areas while still enjoying the advantage of local retail locations.

While interest in click & collect is not new, 2020 saw a massive spike in demand and turned it into one of the hottest retail trends. Back in 2017, the Click & Collect Retail Consumer Preference Study revealed that nearly one third of shoppers made an online purchase and subsequently picked their order up at a store during the 2016 holiday season. Fast forward to 2020, where in-store pickup increased by over 554% YOY in May.

Engaging online customers through stores

The in-store experience is still a crucial touch point for retail chains looking to enhance the relationship with their customers. Unlike curbside pickup (an otherwise similar fulfillment model), click & collect offers an amazing opportunity for shoppers to browse more and purchase additional items when picking up their online shopping order.

Optimize the middle mile – Click and collect is also a way for retailers to optimize their delivery network. Since retailers already need to deliver items to their stores for replenishment, they can make more efficient use of existing vehicles and reduce transportation costs by delivering items for in-store fulfillment at the same time.

Click & collect vs. hyperlocal delivery

As retailers have adapted to new ways of fulfilling products purchased online in the post-Covid 19 era, two new models stand out: ship-from-store and deliver in store. Many retailers have been forced to close locations due to either shelter-in-place rules, or to the shift among consumers to prioritize necessary spending over discretionary retail purchases. To justify the price of square footage, retail locations must now serve as a node in eCommerce fulfillment. Existing fulfillment models like ship-from-store and click & collect have become retail trends that highlight how to use local retail footprint to reduce the cost of eCommerce fulfillment and improve efficiency.

Both fulfillment models can use existing staff, or require outsourced resources. Also both require integration with inventory management systems, so as to have visibility about where inventory is, and which retail location or MFC it should be fulfilled from. As a model, though, launching click & collect requires less operational change than ship-from-store. Delivery involves additional complex capabilities such as dispatching and routing. Customers and store managers need a way to track drivers. And, of course, the chain of custody gets tricky and will require digital proof of delivery.

Flexibility – Another big differentiator is flexibility. When a customer schedules a delivery window, it’s difficult for them to change that time and date. They may have an option, but it will require orders to be rerouted, which requires specific delivery management capabilities. With click & collect, retailers can offer customers open-ended pickup, where they can pick up their order at any time within a large time window (for example, one week), and notify the store the morning that they plan to pick up the order.

Cost – The biggest differentiator between the two is cost: the cost of managing third party fleets, and the cost of delivery to both customers and retailers. Customers are sensitive to the cost of delivery; it’s no surprise that cost is by far the key driver for people choosing to collect orders in store, with 76 percent of Click & Collect shoppers saying that saving on shipping costs was the most important factor for them.

The impact of this model can be felt on cart abandonment rates. According to the Baymard Institute, extra ‘hidden’ costs like taxes and delivery fees are the number one reason for digital shopping cart abandonment. Image if an online retailer advertises free delivery, and you as a consumer go to checkout. You fill in your preferred fulfillment method, add credit card and shipping details, and only then (five-plus minutes into the checkout process) discover that your preferred delivery window costs significantly more than you expected.

This is exactly where in-store pickup can impact online sales rates. Even when some of the cost for this model is handed down to customers, it is understandably less than the comparative cost of home delivery. Moreover, when comparing both models with and without customer fees, click and collect overwhelmingly proves to have greater margins (Bain & Company). It’s safe to say that offering in-store pickup during checkout with free or low payment will prevent shopping cart abandonment.

Click & collect also has fewer overhead costs than delivery, with existing locations and staff being utilized to fulfill both regular in-store orders and orders purchased online. When pickup is in the retailer’s brick-and-mortar store, it allows retailers to maintain footfall to their stores, where they can upsell to customers.

Both in-store collection and local delivery offer customers the speed and convenience they are looking for, and can increase your brand’s standing with consumers. Ideally, both should be an option, though not necessarily for all locations. Brands may find that one model better suits an urban vs. suburban setting, or locations which attract a specific demographic that prefer one model over the other.

Why Brands Choose Click and Collect:

• Monetize existing retail footprint through fulfilling online orders
• Requires fewer resources than delivery
• Potentially relies less on third party providers than delivery, and makes it easier to have visibility into the chain of custody and fulfillment flow
• Allows customers to enjoy the familiar in-store experience while limiting contact with other people in the store
• Does not require any additional cost to the customer, which delivery might require
• Can be launched quickly using existing resources
• Allows customers flexibility to pick up the order when convenient

The challenges

By 2021, it will no longer be a question about whether retailers offer in-store omnichannel fulfillment models – but of how good their fulfillment experience is compared to competitors.

Customer expectations – Customers want to pick up orders when it’s convenient for them – the order must be ready for pickup. They expect that once they get there, the store representative will reach them quickly. How close to the customer is the nearest pickup location? How long are your customers waiting to hear their order is ready? How long do they have to wait on line in store to pick it up? Keep in mind that customers are not willing to spend more than five minutes waiting for their order to come out.

Business and operational challenges – these include:

• Sending the customer to the right store (location/availability)
• Alerting store employees when customers have arrived (you don’t want customers to have to call employees, as this makes the entire efficiency of the fulfillment model redundant)
• Optimizing store operations: managing congestion, ensuring a fast turnaround for pickup customers while also make sure that retail delivery and walk-in customers are accommodated as well.

Speed to market – in-store pickup is on its way to becoming fully commoditized. Today, the majority of retailers have implemented some form of buy online, pickup in store option – even if it hasn’t been digitized or automated yet.

By 2021, it will no longer be a question about whether retailers offer click & collect -but of how good their fulfillment experience is compared to competitors.

Read: Bringg and Party City Partner to Provide additional Fulfillment Models

How to set it up

To set up click and collect operations, you will need to integrate your systems including POS and inventory management system. If you have an owned online channel like a mobile app or website, it should be able to display up-to-date available pickup locations. (ideally you’ll have in-store pickup available across all locations, but if not, the consumer should only see it as an option if it’s available in a store near them).

Backend – choose which locations should be available to the customer. In order to automate this, there should be rules around how many locations customers will get to choose from, the distance used to detect available stores or pickup locations (for example, retailers should set a rule where only stores within an X radius of the customer will show up as pickup options).

Brands then need to decide which technologies they will deploy in order to create an efficient, customer-centric flow.

Remember – quick and dirty setup is one thing; scaling up efficiently is another. Once you have the basics of click & collect up and running, you need to optimize it if you want to increase revenue from the model and ensure that yours offers the best customer experience on the market.

What the ideal click & collect flow looks like

The optimal flow focuses on two points: increase efficiency of the flow to reduce the workload on retail employees and support staff (e.g. reduce support calls), and create a differentiated experience.

• During checkout, Customers choose their fulfillment option. They are presented with several real-time options for pickup location, based on the business’s priorities and inventory availability.– An order comes in to store employees, ideally on the same dashboard as delivery orders, so they can prioritize accordingly.
• Simultaneously, the customer receives an order confirmation, with a link to where they can set a pickup time- Customers receive notification when their order is ready for pickup.
• Customer indicates when they are on their way, so employees can organized the items for pickup accordingly, making sure store operations are synced with customer arrival.
• The employee-facing dashboard should include order ID. Both employee and customer-facing applications should include order ID and either color-coding or some other way to clearly mark the order so that pickup is fast and easy.
• Ideally, the customer should be digitally directed to one of the click & collect pickup points as they drive up to the store. Separating regular in-store and online order collection points will reduce waiting time for both omnichannel and brick-and-mortar shoppers who want to check out.
• Customers should be able to confirm the pickup – and employees, the proof of delivery – via digital methods, to maintain a contactless pickup.
• Customers should receive a pickup confirmation that lets them rate the pickup experience. This both gives the retailer feedback into which elements of their operations need improvement, and how customer experience stands.

Setting up profitable click & collect: connected, efficient operations that customers love

As a fulfillment model, click & collect a win-win situation for retailers and customers. It’s one trend that retailers must take into account when developing their growth strategy, especially since it can help them leverage their existing supply chain, increase sales, and make the most of an increasingly challenging retail environment.

The question is no longer whether to enable click and collect, as most retailers have already done so, but in what will set your service apart. With the race for market share closing in, retailers with online presence need to focus on scaling up and optimizing their in-store pickup operations for speed (same day option), convenience (choice of stores), and trust (accuracy of offered locations, delivery times, and a good overall experience).

Bringg’s out-of-the-box enterprise technology is helping a wide variety of retailers to quickly digitize, automated and optimize their delivery & fulfillment operations at scale. Learn more about our click and collect software or explore Bringg’s SaaS Platform here.

People also asked:

The post Retail Trends: The Growing Demand for Click and Collect appeared first on Bringg.

To get there, you’ll need to catch up on two things: How to take advantage of your retail locations to operate BOPIS, BORIS and other in-store fulfillment models, and how to develop the operational efficiency to cover the cost to your business.

Read on to learn what it takes to power seamless, efficient in-store pickup flows that are part of a successful omnichannel fulfillment strategy.

The Gap: customer expectations vs retail offerings

It’s the missing speed and convenience that’s driving 66% of online shoppers to Amazon first, before even consulting your site.

Right now there’s still a huge gap between customers’ delivery expectations and retail offerings. This discrepancy is what’s driving a majority of online shoppers to Amazon first, before even consulting your site.

You can reach the same conclusion by looking at the prestigious retail brands that filed for bankruptcy in the first half of 2020, including Neiman Marcus, Brooks Brothers, Pier 1. While other factors may have been involved in why these brands closed shop, they were all unprepared for the speed of ecommerce adoption and how swiftly they’d be called on to offer alternative fulfillment solutions.

The data is clear: your delivery and fulfillment offerings decide where your customers do their online shopping. Retailers who want to remain competitive can’t ignore the need to optimize and expand their retail fulfillment options.

It’s clear that retailers are aware of this, with 90% of retailers expected to offer BOPIS by 2021. Given this, retailers need to place huge emphasis on building up cost-effective in-store fulfillment with unified experiences across all online and offline locations – and they need to do it right now. They’ll also need to go the extra mile to ensure customers get unified last-mile experiences regardless of whether it’s a delivery or in-store fulfillment of an order.

BOPIS: Using retail locations to your advantage

Running buy online, pickup in store (BOPIS), also known as click and collect, is a strategy that can garner your brand a reputation for flexible, convenient fulfillment options, and through it, a good fulfillment experience. Adding your retail locations to your ecommerce supply chain and fulfillment flow gives your customers additional options with the optimal efficiency from the business point of view – you’re using existing staff and resources to fulfill the order. It also lets stores benefit from foot-traffic when people come to pick up (BOPIS) or return (BORIS) their orders.

Besides satisfying customers, BOPIS is also one of the most cost-effective fulfillment models. Retailers who leverage their brick-and-mortar locations for pickup fulfillment can offer faster fulfillment at better rates, thanks to no (or low) shipping costs to customers. BOPIS and curbside pickup allow retailers to take a costly pain – excess inventory – and use it to provide faster fulfillment (e.g. free same-day in-store pickups).

Given this, it’s not surprising that 55% of retailers are offering BOPIS services, and fully 67% are operating department or mall stores turned into ‘dark’ stores and fulfillment centers.

But why not everyone?

It’s clear that retailers who are able to take advantage of their physical footprint with BOPIS and similar models stand to gain substantially. So why isn’t every retailer providing BOPIS? And why hasn’t it happened already?

The struggles of launching and managing BOPIS

BOPIS is a relatively straightforward fulfillment model. But what many retailers forget is that ‘simple and straightforward’ is not the same as ‘easy to operate’.

Lack of planning – Imagine you are an in-store shopper. You’ve chosen an item or two, and make your way towards the register. After a minute or two in line, the person in front of you approaches the register and hands the store employee their phone, with a long item number on it. The employee disappears for a few minutes, looking for the order, but can’t find it. After a few minutes, they come back outside, apologizing to the infuriated customer.

In this scenario, the BOPIS customer waited in line, only to find out their order was misplaced. They’ll have to come back another time. The in-store shopper behind them also wasted time in line. This happened because store operations – from store layout to customer service – were not set up for BOPIS.

Without the proper planning, coordination, and visibility into resources, BOPIS can result in a bad customer experience for more than just the BOPIS customer.

Inventory needs to be synced across multiple systems. Many retailers do not have a real-time view of in-store inventory levels and cannot properly manage those levels for walk-in vs. online customers. This makes it difficult for them to provide a guaranteed pickup in-store or ship from store time to their online customers. This can lead to online customers coming to pick up their order in a brick-and-mortar retail store, only to find out that the item is not in stock because it was sold to a walk-in customer.

The other problem with this scenario is the lack of coordination between resources, including brick-and-mortar locations. Some stores will have more staff available to quickly manage BOPIS orders. Will you launch BOPIS evenly across locations? Some stores may have inventory available; for other locations, you may have to bring it in from an MFC first. How will this translate to pickup options during checkout? You need both visibility and full integration between your ecommerce site, POS, and other technologies

BOPIS takes more than just brick-and-mortar and online presence. It takes planning.

• Do you have staff available to manage BOPIS orders, or do you have to hire more?
• What will these people do when they are not fulfilling orders?
• Where will BOPIS customers pick up their orders in the store?
• Is there a dedicated BOPIS collection counter?
• How will in-store pickup affect the shopping experience of other customers in the store?

For retailers, solving these problems starts with planning, but it also takes the right resources – including the right tech.

Using BOPIS technology to deliver exceptional customer experiences

To realize your buy online pickup in store strategy, you will need to automate and optimize your fulfillment process, from providing accurate quotes during checkout, through all of your retail delivery operations, and down to the pickup in store.

With the right technology platform in place, you can offer exceptional BOPIS experiences that strengthen their brand and customer ‘stickiness’. These competitive experiences rely on your ability to do three things:

1. Get connected — gather data from every node in your supply chain, from inventory location to retail store hours, to your customer’s pickup preferences. This will help you make informed decisions about which last mile fulfillment options are needed where, and ensure that they run smoothly.
2. Connect your resources – the more in sync your purchasing, delivery and fulfillment channels are, the more successful you’ll be at providing great experiences for all, and keeping potential in-store friction to a minimum.
3. Automate and Optimize – Automating the BOPIS flow through tools for retail and inventory teams will help them fulfill BOPIS orders accurately and efficiently. This will not only ensure the pick-up customer is happy, but that pickup operations do not disrupt service to in-store customers
4. Create a unified delivery & fulfillment strategy

Make your BOPIS flow part of an omnichannel fulfillment strategy. Omnichannel shoppers spend more in-store and online than single-channel customers do. Furthermore, it has been demonstrated that spending increases with each additional channel that shoppers engage with. Shoppers who research their purchases online spend substantially more (13%) in-store. Omnichannel shoppers are also more loyal, with shoppers logging 23% more repeat shopping trips to brick-and-mortar stores within six months of an omnichannel shopping experience. Omnichannel shoppers are also more likely to recommend the retailer than single-channel shoppers.

Using fulfillment technology to sync your data, automate BOPIS operations, and coordinate between your different delivery and fulfillment channels helps ensure that your in-store pickup model results in cost-effective fulfillment and high customer satisfaction rates for every brick-and-mortar location.

See how these principles translate to a seamless BOPIS fulfillment flow:

How retailers can create seamless BOPIS operations: sample flow

Scheduling and Checkout

To make BOPIS as part of an omnichannel flow, the retailer’s ecommerce platform must be synced with the system that can identify the nearest retail location, distribution center or warehouse that has the relevant inventory in stock.

During the checkout process, your online site should provide real-time delivery quotes based on inventory and fleet availability. To do this, information from the inventory management system, in-house delivery staff or third party fleets must all be collected in a single central location to determine delivery availability and pricing (also called delivery quote). With this information in hand, the ecommerce platform can offer the shopper accurate, real-time quotes for in-store pickup.

After selecting the fulfillment type, customers should be presented with the option to schedule a pickup time. Once the order is placed, the same system that is syncing all of the information between systems and parties records the transaction for later analysis, syncs the purchase information back to the CRM platform, and notifies the store team so they can coordinate order preparation with the customer’s arrival.

Order Prep and Staging

Staff at the inventory location must be notified of the incoming order and its processing details so that they can prepare it for pickup (or, if the inventory is coming from a fulfillment century, for delivery to the pickup location). Ideally they will be using a mobile app for managing the order preparation and pickup/delivery staging.

To process the order, the prepping or staging team should receive instructions that are clear, automated, and connected to the order – so that staff cannot proceed with the order until the appropriate actions have been taken. For example, if bar codes should be scanned before items are packed, then staff should be required to upload a bar code before being allowed to confirm that the order is ready for pickup.

Coordinating Customer Pickup

Customers need to know exactly where to go for pickup. They could be asked to park in a specific parking area, or approach a dedicated pickup counter inside the store. Automating this process ensures a seamless in-store experience. Similarly, both customer and store staff should be presented with unique order IDs or some other way to ensure that each order is handed off to the correct customer.

Like any other delivery or fulfillment flow, technology is required to measure everything from customer responsiveness, through new orders, and all the way to on-time performance. Analytical tools are critical for ensuring the business leadership and management can understand and optimize the automation flows and operational performance.

Compliance, Feedback, and Upselling

During the fulfillment process, fulfillment teams can be required to collect a signature, scan product barcodes to follow the chain of custody, or photograph an item for documentation and warranty purposes. You’ll need the right technology to sync all of these activities with the relevant internal systems, so that staff know exactly what they need to do, when, and how.

Retailers should ask for feedback immediately following the delivery via a push notification from an app, or via an additional SMS with a link to a feedback page. The operations team needs to track the results by the day and over periods of time to ensure that they’re aware of any problems or complaints (whether specific or recurring)

For upselling, you can use automated customer pickup and feedback notifications to highlight discounts and other forms of upselling.

Curbside pickup follows a similar flow to BOPIS. Retailers with their own parking lots will often designate a particular area for curbside pickup, whereas retailers without them are often forced to be a bit more creative with their curbside offering.

Delivery to lockers is another model that follows much of the same flow as home or office deliveries. Retailers can set up or rent locker space in various locations, or work with companies that provide locker space in apartment buildings, various businesses or other public or semi-public areas. Automated updates notify customers when their package is en route and when it’s ready to be picked up from the locker.

Getting BOPIS and these other fulfillment models right may not be ‘easy, but with the right planning and technology, they can provide customers with convenience and flexibility, and give your business a competitive advantage.

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To maintain and expand market share in the coming year and beyond, it’s not enough to offer a cost-efficient model like BOPIS, or even to run it effectively. You must focus on what your customers want, where and how they want orders fulfilled – and then meet them with the most favorable delivery and fulfillment options. Make sure that BOPIS is part of a unified, omnichannel strategy incorporating all online and in-store points of sale, all retail locations, and multiple delivery and fulfillment models.

Technologies available today can make this process less daunting, enabling retailers to orchestrate efficient, profitable deliveries across all of their fulfillment sources.

Bringg helps businesses apply their business priorities to automated unified delivery and fulfillment flows, enabling same-day and multi-day delivery, BOPIS, ship from store, and returns – all through a single centralized platform. You can learn more about our delivery and fulfillment SaaS platform here.

Frequently Asked Questions:

The post BOPIS in Retail: Acing Omnichannel Fulfillment appeared first on Bringg.

Kitchens that are purpose-built for on-premise dining are not optimized for off-premise orders. On-premise diners are present and ready to pick up their food the moment it is ready. As a result, they enjoy their food the way it was intended. In contrast, off-premise orders are prepared before the customer or delivery driver even arrives. When orders are prepared too early, the food degrades in quality while orders clog retail staging areas. On the other hand, when orders are prepared too late, delivery drivers or pickup customers arrive before the food is ready and clog the retail, curbside and drive thu spaces. This results in a poor guest experience.

This insight led to the creation of the Bringg Prep App. This intuitive web application synchronizes with Bringg’s backend systems to ensure that orders are ready for pickup just moments before the customer or delivery driver arrives. How does this work? Let’s take a peek under the hood.

Tracking Inbound Drivers and Customers

The first step is to determine each driver and customer’s real-time ETA. This requires determining each driver’s location and calculating their projected arrival time.

For delivery drivers on the Bringg platform, Bringg’s Driver App or SDK report their location and progress so Bringg can calculate their real-time ETA. Similarly, Bringg’s customer tracking SDK reports each inbound customer’s real-time progress and ETA. For delivery drivers using other technology platforms, Bringg syncs with their backend technology to determine their location and ETA, as available. When real-time ETA data is not available, such as when customers elect not to share their location information, the system defaults to the planned pickup time.

Determining Order Prep Time

The next step is to determine how long each order will take to prepare. This can be pre-set as a universal rule (5 minutes per order), configured based on the order inventory, or automatically determined using machine learning.

Sending Orders for Prep Right On-Time

The Prep App monitors the inbound pickup timing, and combines this with the order prep timing to determine when preparation for each order should begin. This real-time visibility and operational coordination ensures that orders are ready for pickup just moments before they are needed, improving operational efficiency and food quality.

Managing and Measuring Kitchen Activity

In addition to providing retail and kitchen teams with visibility into customer and driver arrival times, the Prep App provides kitchen teams with an intuitive interface for managing order preparation. This customizable interface allows kitchen staff to easily navigate order information, moving each order to the next stage in the process when prep begins and as it is completed.

In the backend, the Prep App monitors order progress, providing both management and customers with insight into order progress. For example, customers can be notified when their order prep begins. BI dashboards provide management with insights into their kitchen efficiency and off-premise operational timing, so they can identify and address issues. Similarly, leaders can compare dwell time with customer loyalty and ratings to determine the impact of order timing on customer satisfaction.

See: 10 Ways Tech Improves Off-Premise Customer Experiences

The rise of off-premise dining presents restaurant leaders with a number of opportunities and challenges. One of the most fundamental and sometimes overlooked operational and logistical imperatives is to integrate kitchen operations into off-premise logistical flows. Providing kitchen staff with the right tools and visibility improves kitchen efficiency, internal fleet performance, food quality and the guest experience.

Learn more about Bringg’s technology for off-premise delivery, drive thru and curbside pickup.

The post The Key to Off-Premise Efficiency and Quality is In Your Kitchen appeared first on Bringg.

Bringg’s curbside pickup solution takes into account all of the resources involved – including – customers, orders, inventory, and store staff – and uses technology to create an efficient curbside pickup flow. It provides both store staff and customers with visibility. Our solution helps businesses to provide cost-saving, safe, convenient fulfillment that can be scaled largely using your existing retail staff. It also reduces your customer’s waiting time, which can be a major differentiator in today’s market.

The Curbside Pickup Flow at Bringg

4 Benefits of Bringg’s Curbside Solution:

1. Growing your business by adding a new fulfillment channel using existing resources.
2. Fulfill more orders from your curbside spaces and improve the pickup experience by reducing customer waiting time.
3. Dynamically add additional pickup spots based on current demand.
4. Ensure order quality for fresh food.

When customers place their order, Bringg sends them an order confirmation message via email or SMS. This contains a link directing them to a web app powered by Bringg, where they can choose their pickup time.

Alternatively, customers can choose their method of transportation; Bringg then tracks them in real-time and provides stores with a dynamic customer ETA for arrival at the store.

Once the customer arrives at the store, they can notify the store staff of their arrival via the app. Customers also receive details – including an order color, Pickup ID, or a specific lane – so that staff can easily locate them and come load the correct order into the car.

How it works

The Bringg App can be configured to provide two different ways for customers to indicate their arrival time at curbside. One of these flows is based on customer tracking; the other, on a pickup time provided by the customer.

Why Customer tracking is important

The more data you have, the more efficient your curbside operations will be. Instead of customers arriving and then lining up to wait as your staff find and load their order, you can ensure every step is synced by tracking customer arrival and progress in real-time .

Businesses using customer tracking have a more streamlined pickup experience. Customers can set pickup time by opening the app and selecting a method of transportation. From this point on, the app tracks the customer’s progress towards the pickup location.

Grocers who choose not to use Customer Tracking can direct customers to select a specific arrival time:

In both flows, the data is passed through Bringg to our Store App. The store staff use the app to monitor and prepare incoming orders. (This data can also be viewed in Bringg’s Dispatch Dashboard.) This real-time flow synchronizes staging and loading with the customer’s arrival time, prioritizing order prep, and managing curbside spaces accordingly.

Customer arrival

When customer tracking is enabled, the Store App automatically notifies staff that the customer has arrived, so that the loading team is ready for customers at the right pickup spot.

Both the customer’s app and the Store app clearly mark orders with a unique color and Pickup ID, making it easy for staff to identify and validate orders before handing it over to the customer.

When customer location data is not available, Bringg still makes it easy for customers to notify the store that they’ve arrived.

Following each curbside delivery order, customers instantly receive a thank you message with a rating form, providing real-time insight into customer performance.

End-to-end visibility and reporting allow everyone from dispatchers to operations management to benchmark and improve curbside performance.

Curbside pickup is just one of our full suite of grocery delivery and fulfillment technology solutions. To learn more about Bringg’s capabilities for Grocery, click here.

The post Customer Tracking: The Technology behind Bringg’s Curbside Pickup Solution appeared first on Bringg.

But whether you’re an established restaurant chain expanding delivery and drive-thru, or a retail brand launching curbside pickup, deploying eCommerce fulfillment is not simple. Not all retail locations have the parking space or staff to cope with the surge in demand. Customers too, have high expectations for timely, convenient pickup.

Here are a few ways enterprise retailers, grocery and restaurateurs are using our technology to improve their eCommerce fulfillment.

Automated, intelligent flows for pickup operations

Automated pickup scheduling and quotes:

Allow customers to pick their preferred pickup location and time during checkout, based on the business’s real-time availability. If there are no available slots at the location or it’s currently fulfilling to capacity, you can even suggest nearby alternative locations. (This is a very common approach when scheduling grocery pickup.)

For restaurants, where order lead times are shorter than grocery, we use intelligent scheduling to estimate how long it will take customers to arrive, based on their mode of transportation and start location.

For example, if someone orders online and sets a pickup time, they can either select an exact time of arrival, or say they are coming by car (for example). Bringg uses data modelling to project that it’ll take them 18 minutes to arrive by foot and 5 by car. That information will be used to time the order preparation with their arrival (keep reading to find out more).

eCommerce, Marketplace and POS integrations

We integrate directly into eCommerce providers and major marketplaces. This means that your customers can order anywhere, and the order is synced directly to your retail POS or picking software for full visibility and seamless fulfillment.

Just-in-Time Prep App for Kitchens

Restaurants have a unique challenge when it comes to Drive Thru and click & collect.

If the food is prepared too early, it won’t be fresh when the customer arrives. Prepare it too late, and the customer will be forced to wait, possibly holding up other customers as well.

In either case, these inefficiencies limit your productive capacity, taking up valuable kitchen time, parking space and cluttering prep and staging areas.

Bringg’s Delivery Prep App tracks customer arrival progress in real time and uses Machine Learning to optimize the predicted pickup time. Orders are automatically fired so that they will be ready seconds before the customer arrives, ensuring the highest food quality, efficiency in the kitchen, and customer experience.

Meanwhile, customers can use Bringg’s Customer Experience App to check their route to the restaurant, and get live updates on when their order will be ready.

Bringg’s Store App: Easy order assignment, pickup and collection for customers and delivery staff.

Your customers can choose where and when they want to pick up orders during checkout. The Bringg Store App makes sure your retail is ready to deliver every order to every inbound customer or driver.

This way, you can reduce your customer’s waiting time by coordinating fulfillment and pickup flows in real-time.

On the retail side, staff use Bringg’s Store app to monitor and prepare upcoming orders, tracking customers and delivery drivers as they approach the store.

When customers place their order, Bringg sends them an order confirmation messaging, including a link to a Customer Experience app. This app allows customers to track their order status and provides a Pickup ID which they will use to collect their order.

The Store App notifies staff as customers arrive, so their orders are ready to be handed over – either in the store, or as a curbside pickup. Orders are clearly marked with a unique color as well as the Pickup ID, making it easy for staff to identify the correct order and validate its contents before handing it over to the customer.

Logistics BI

Every business is different. That’s why tracking and measuring every step of your performance is so critical: It helps you understand what works or doesn’t work for your eCommerce fulfillment operations, and how to improve results by acting on that information.

Bringg’s Logistics BI dashboards and reports help operational teams track results on the individual store and inventory level, while helping executives see the big picture trends and better align resources.

Want to learn more? Join our webinar, Practical Strategies for Scaling Online Pickup and Delivery

The post When the customers come to you: Optimizing Pickup, Click & Collect, and Drive Thru appeared first on Bringg.