‘Click and Collect’ likely to become more of a trend in Canada: retail analyst
Posted January 30, 2015 8:45 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – A new shopping experience is taking Europe by storm and it’s now picking up steam in Canada.
When someone uses ‘Click and Collect,’ they’re able to order online and get their order at a designated pick-up spot right away.
It’s is a middle ground for customers who want to have a product in their hands right away without having to pay shipping costs, and for retailers who find it economical to handle,” says David Ian Gray with DIG360 Consulting.
He adds it’s often more convenient to swing by a store for your purchase than to wait for it to arrive in the mail… only to miss the delivery and have to go somewhere to pick it up anyway.
Gray foresees this becoming the way of shopping in Canada “because it’s good for the retailers. It’s much easier for them to manage. If they have ‘x’ number of stores, one of those stores will receive the product. They’ve already got systems in place to move product to those stores.”
But he acknowledges there can be challenges.
“There’s a lot of capacity issues — particularly in Canada, with our geography — and the need for the ability to move product very quickly and often in small quantities, not the big shipping containers.”
He adds all-sized businesses will need to figure out how to accommodate giving customers multiple ways of getting the products they buy.
“We’re in a time of flux and change, and there will be no end to all this because there’s innovation happening on a regular basis. But how we deal with delivery in having multiple options for customers to get product — how that looks in five years — we probably can’t anticipate fully. We’re part of a journey right now and I think the key to retail is to realize we’re on a journey; there’s not a finite answer to this. They should definitely be grappling with the issue and starting to get their feet wet if they haven’t begun already because it’s going to be awfully hard to play catch up in a few years if the majority of the industry is setting a standard.”
