Buy Online, Pick Up In Store (BOPIS) – new eCommerce trend for COVID-19

With clients looking for minimizing contact and exposure with COVID-19 placing many countries in a state of lockdown, businesses are looking to still function with the restrictions of self-distancing and yet still sell products. What has shown to keep smaller businesses that have an eCommerce store in place allows clients to pick-up their purchases locally. Additionally, saving on the cost of shipping, and obtaining your goods quicker is an incentive for some. This is applicable to a multitude of sectors in the industry such as food/goods/services where some will have a delivery window, or in some grocery stores, a parking spot. If this is an enabler to re-open the economic system, what’s required to encourage clients to engage with your business?

eCommerce requirements and Apps

If you have your eCommerce store with Shopify, it is a quick search for an app that does this, and that service is added to your store. Zapiet’s Pickup + Delivery app is an excellent example to satisfy that capability.

Zapiet Pickup + Delivery: https://apps.shopify.com/click-and-collect

WooCommerce has a similar Extension called Local Pickup Plus, and this enhancement can be found here: https://woocommerce.com/products/local-pickup-plus/

Magento’s option is called Store Pickup, this one is “free” and delivers the same experience as the other apps: https://marketplace.magento.com/cybage-storepickup.html

Physical Requirements

Unlike traditional shipping, this method of delivering goods/services require a time and place. Concerns by clients are Security, Parking Convenience, and ability to access their order in a way that there are no mix-ups. At the minimum it requires someone attentive to do the latter, however, the security and parking can be a challenge depending on your location.

Time Slots

While this seems straightforward such as an appointment, there are always those that are late or show up the next day. While it seems straightforward to make a time slot arrangement, ensuring that your business has the facility to deliver outside of these slots is important for customer service reasons. Additionally, some may even forget to pick up their package, and a reminder system might be required to alert the client that their goods are waiting.

Conclusion

What’s for sure, cities like New York have seen the benefits in the BOPIS model as well as using it as a delivery service during the lockdown, servicing food deliveries to hospital staff, food bank donations to people in need, or goods that would have social distancing being a challenge. If you need advice on how to enhance your eCommerce store, feel free to reach out to us and we can discuss it.