A great dynamic has occurred in recent times in retail as societal changes caused by the pandemic have made retailers rethink how to do business. Just as in the 1950s and 1960s when the main street boutiques reached near extinction due to the emergence of malls, no one thought they’d see malls go the way mom-and-pop stores did way back then, but they have. As online ordering has driven them to pivot and figure out how to survive, today’s retail outlets are having to consider curbside and drive thru pickup as the norm as people opt for more convenience and better service than ever before.
With this trend, greater demands are being placed on retailers to change their business models and rethink operations such as labor, physical plant, pricing, marketing and, perhaps most of all, technology. While the upside is quite encouraging, addressing these issues is quite another.
Sixty-two percent of U.S. online shoppers now expect retailers to offer curbside pickup according to a May 2021 Ship Station study. And, as of August 2020, nearly 44 percentof the top 245 retailers offer curbside pickup, up from 6.9 percent at the end of 2019.
As this dynamic shift in retail happens, how will retailers be able to support it? As usual, technology will be a key force in helping retailers morph and evolve into supporting online ordering and curbside pickup as convenience continues to drive commerce.
One thing we are focused on is the role technology can play in the future of retail. While many look at the process of online ordering and curbside or drive thru pickup as purely transactional, we feel it offers an opportunity to better engage with, market to, and learn about customers to create stickiness and collect data that makes the business better.
We are seeing five things in the online ordering and curbside pickup process that makes it more than just a transaction, but a strategic part of a retailer’s business if integrated properly:
- Customizable arrival notifications allow retailers to improve the overall buying experience — Flexible geofencing technology built into the ordering application allows retailers to know precisely when customers are nearby and when they will arrive so the establishment can deliver messages during the drive and make offers to upsell. In short, to market during the curbside pickup process increases the value of the purchase and overall experience.
- Improved marketing not only during the transaction but beyond – Curbside ordering applications can capture valuable drive-thru customer data that was previously captured by third-party delivery apps and it can be used in future promotions and marketing as well as improving brand awareness among customers.
- Increased revenue opportunities through greater customer interaction – This type of application gives retailers the ability to offer curbside pickup or drive thru which have proven to increase business and repeat orders. Also, the ability to interact through the whole experience gives the retailer many opportunities to sell more during a captive audience period.
- Integrated ordering for greater efficiency and accuracy — Retailers can manage online orders in one place by integrating online ordering directly into point of sale (POS) solutions to increase efficiency and accuracy and make operations flow more smoothly for employees.
- Lower costs by eliminating the “middleman” – Third-party ordering and delivery fees can be eliminated as the retailer no longer has to be dependent on some other third-party application that charges significant fees for ordering and arranging the pickup, thus eliminating the middleman.
Needless to say, curbside ordering and pickup are here to stay. In fact, the recent Connected Shoppers report by Salesforce showed that 39 percent of U.S. retail executives introduced curbside pickup during the pandemic and 74 percent said they will keep it post pandemic. And, click-and-collect sales skyrocketed to a whopping $72.5 billion in 2020—more than double that of 2019—and aren’t predicted to stop growing any time soon, per eMarketer.
Society has become accustomed to and continues to demand convenience in shopping — across all sorts of retail and drive-thru and curbside ordering and pick up. This area of commerce will only proliferate in the coming years and as it does great demands will be placed on retail outlets to compete and offer these options. Technology will be a big part of this proliferation. and there are some things that businesses need to think about when deploying/implementing supporting technology. Most importantly not to look at the online ordering and pickup experience as a one-time, simple transaction, but rather as a business opportunity to provide an experience for the customer, create greater brand awareness, and grow a retailer’s business.
