Feature: Is the UK a click & collect nation?
By Jon Whiteaker - 09:29AM - Thu 26th January 2012
With multichannel sales now forming a vital part of overall retail trading, an increasing number of UK retailers are running click & collect services for their high street operations.
Many thought 2011 would be the year ordering online and collecting in store really took off, so at the beginning of 2012 have consumers been won over by this developing shopping option and what is the extent of its potential?
On paper it is a god-send for trader; promising to offer a boost to flagging footfall figures while importantly also delivering more customer choice, and new research from Retail Gazette shows that Britons seem to be overwhelming supporters of this developing shopping option.
Market Research firm Simpson Carpenter conducted a survey in December, on behalf of this publication, which revealed 70 per cent of those who have tried click & collect before found the service very satisfactory the last time they used it.
Of the 13 most used click & collect services B&Q was the only one with less than 60 per cent of consumers left very satisfied by their experience, while John Lewis and Argos topped the list with 98 per cent of shoppers either quite or very satisfied.
That is a high approval rating for an emerging channel, and the research shows that almost all of shoppers are now familiar with the service while only 24 per cent of respondents had never used it before.
Availability and convenience appear to be the main drivers of the click & collect trend, with 91 per cent of those who have used it saying they did so because of a guarantee that their desired product will be in-store while 87 per cent used it because they could choose the time of collection.
Even more encouragingly, those using the service appear to be using click & collect as part of their regular routine rather than on special occasions, with less than half of respondents stating that they were motivated to use service by wanting to shop at busy trading times or for in demand products.
One in ten online sales are now made via click & collect, according to figures released by e-tail trade body IMRG late last year, and some within the industry believe that its success has acted as a catalyst for traders to improve their cross-channel capabilities.
“The ‘click and collect’ trend has lead retailers to increasingly use enhanced websites and sophisticated mobile phone apps to boost sales,” argued Domenica Scordo, a retail analyst with international property advisor BNP Paribas Real Estate.
“With the growth of online sales set to increase, the development of ‘collection destinations’ within the conventional retail environment is also expected to continue,” she added.
Pure-play retailers are being tempted into physical locations by its potential, with e-tail giant Amazon recently experimenting with collection lockers at London’s One New Change shopping centre.
Not only did this mean Amazon could promote its brand within a busy shopping environment but it also allowed customers to avoid paying for home deliveries, which Simpson Carpenter found was a motivating factor to use click & collect for 78 per cent of its survey sample.
Developing a successful click & collect service is far from simple however and Richard Willis, Retail Solutions Director for technology firm Torex argues that only by introducing the right systems can retailer make it work.
“In order to provide a seamless click & collect service, retailers need to invest in technology… which builds upon existing application infrastructures to unify the channels and provide a single view of customer buying patterns, orders and stock availability.”
It is also clear that this form of shopping is not an industry-wide panacea, with some sectors such as grocer much less suited to the offer, although most major supermarkets do offer pre-order shopping.
In a typical response to Simpson Carpenters survey one respondent said: “If you’re going to bother going to the shop and carrying the items, you might just as well pick your fruit, vegetables and meats yourself – I don’t see the point of click and collect for groceries.”
The statistics support this view with 47 per cent saying they never have and would never consider using click & collect for food shopping and of those who have tried the service only 10 per cent had used it for this purpose.
Small electricals seem to be the most popular product category for the medium, followed by entertainment goods and homewares but there is certainly scope for this offer to be successful in other categories.
Click & collect is not for everyone however and it is likely that a section of consumers will never be attracted to it and that some types of shopping will never suit it.
A vast majority of those polled by Simpson Carpenter who do not use the service at present said they know which shops offer it and how the systems works but prefer home deliveries and do not even consider it when buying online.
This is fine because click & collect makes up just a part of the total retail offer that modern retailers now have to provide, but it is likely that over time the limitations of this currently booming medium become better understood.