Buy Online Pickup in Store (BOPIS) – an opportunity or a challenge?

Providing the customer with a comprehensive, consistent shopping experience leads directly to his satisfaction and future purchases. Today's consumer wants a possibility to choose the form and time of shopping, depending on his need at the specific moment: sometimes it will be a quick online transaction with home delivery, other time a slow shopping in a physical store, and sometimes an online order with delivery to the pick-up point. The last option is becoming more popular because it allows customers to comfortably place the order from home, sitting on the couch, from a mobile device for example, then quickly finalize the order by being able to verify the product personally.

How does click and collect affect the operations and processes?

The customer-centric approach drives more and more adjustments, decisions, changes in many retail organizations. Everyone wants to meet customers’ expectations, but it can sometimes be risky. Omnichannel is also a huge challenge – for example including the above-mentioned pick-up option means: 

• more complicated operations,
• modification of shipping process by an additional stage,
• need to synchronize warehouse levels,
• right preparation of the package and many more. 

 A poorly handled delivery process poses a fairly high risk of errors, delays in delivery time, and exposing the company to additional costs. The greatest risk is associated with consumer dissatisfaction, and thus resignation from future purchases and spreading a negative opinion about our services. 

We’ve got a solution! How does it work?

Bearing in mind the satisfaction of our end-users, we have taken advantage of the flexibility of our platform and introduced a new feature. One of the advanced functions offered by Linker is full order handling with pickup at the point (e.g., in the showroom). This process enables: 

• aggregation of parcels with the same destination address, 
• registration of delivery of the parcel at the collection point and information transfer to external systems,
• registration of receipt of the package by the target customer.

When packing orders with the "pick-up-at-point" shipping method, a special label is generated and printed during the packaging process, which allows the identification of the order and manual aggregation of packages into one shipment to the indicated pickup point. 

For convenient order handling, a special module "Pickup at the point" has been added. The module enables the registration of receipts and releases as well as access to the list of orders carried out by this method. The solution allows you to set permissions limiting access to data only for the indicated collection point. After the parcel is delivered to the collection point, an employee uses the prepared interface to scan the barcode on the label, and the order changes the status to "ready for pickup at the point", automatically changing the status in the external system indicated in the integration configuration. The same happens when the order is delivered to the final recipient. 

Omnichannel means happy customers

The solution and process designed in this way ensure very precise supervision over its course and optimization of each of the components: 

• automation of most of the stages, thanks to which the risk of human error is significantly reduced,
• ensuring fast shipment by bundling several orders to one point,
• full transparency and security of the entire process,
• … and probably the most important - customer satisfaction and a positive customer experience.

Multi-channel sales, even on a large scale and cross-border, do not have to be a problem. If you have access to advanced technology and are a trusted supplier of an order processing platform, you are properly prepared and equipped to provide the client with comprehensive service at the highest level. 

If you have similar issues with your eCommerce logistics process we are always ready to help. Our experts are here to dispel any doubts.