The third annual Buy Online/Pick-up In-Store Survey from The E-Tailing Group found that merchants are increasingly on board with this cross-channel marketing tactic, with significant improvement across many aspects of execution. “There is a concerted effort to deliver an integrated and holistic consumer experience along with supporting on-site and post-order communication as well as in-store follow-through,” notes E-Tailing Group president Lauren Freedman in the report.
Specifically, the review of 23 multi-channel merchants found improvements in store locators, such as the new availability at some of options including Google Earth maps. Product locators, a feature tracked for the first time this year, were found on 41% of the sites reviewed. This feature allows online shoppers to check whether an item is available in a specific store.
The study also for the first time examined the online visibility of in-store pick-up programs and determined that the home page was the most frequent location for promoting this feature, with 50% of sites promoting it there.
To support the pick-up in-store option, free shipping to the store remains the most frequent promotion, with penetration of this promotion among the stores reviewed consistently more than 90% over the past three years. Merchants also are extending the cross-channel option to returns, with 100% of merchants reviewed this year offering in-store return for items purchased online, up from 94% in 2006.
The number of merchants offering same-day pick-up of items ordered online increased significantly to 73% in this year’s study, up from 56% last year. But study results showed room for improvement in how merchants handle post-order e-mail communication about the details of store pick-up options.
For example, this year only 64% of such e-mails reviewed included store phone numbers, 32% included store hours and 53% included specific pick-up instructions, though Freedman calls the communication of such information a “must-have” for in-store pick-up. Only 42% of the post-order e-mails specified a time window allowed for pick-up and only 13% included a product bar code for an ordered item.
When E-Tailing Group staff actually tracked the pick-up experience into the stores, they found some improvements over last year as well as some steps backward. They found a designated pick-up counter in 45% of the stores reviewed, up from 28% last year. 55% of the stores displayed in-store signage for pick-up, up from only 36% last year, and, overall, the average wait time for the service dropped slightly to 3.21 minutes from 3.64 minutes last year.
However, although store associates were more knowledgeable about the pick-up process and fewer than last year were involved in multi-tasking when queried about a pick-up, the ordered merchandise was actually less likely to be ready and waiting, with this the case in only 84% of stores, down from 92% last year.
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