Fast availability of items ordered online to be picked up in a store is a great marketing message but not of much interest to consumers, says Patti Freeman Evans, analyst at research and consulting company JupiterResearch.
A consumer survey conducted by JupiterResearch with polling company Ipsos Insights revealed that only 6% of online shoppers expect an item to be ready for pickup within a half hour of ordering and 13% within an hour. At the other end of the spectrum, 21% expect it to be ready within a week. “It’s a nice marketing message, but you don’t have to have it ready that fast,” Freeman Evans told the FedEx Retail & e-Commerce Forum in Chicago today.
The survey showed the following expectations as to the soonest time that an online order would be ready:
Within a half hour: 6%
Within 1 hour 13%
Within 2 hours: 10%
Within a half day: 9%
Same day: 16%
Next day: 25%
Within a week: 21%
“I don’t know anyone who can get up from their computer, get into their car and get to the store in five minutes,” said Freeman Evans, who is speaking at the Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition, June 4-7 in San Jose. Circuit City Stores Inc. and CompUSA Inc. have been particularly aggressive in promoting short pickup times at their stores.
FedEx holds a series of Retail & e-Commerce Forums around the country to help its retailer customers understand the market and how to better use FedEx’s services. The Chicago meeting attracted about two dozen retailers.
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