Digital is now the front door to the store, says a report from Incisiv commissioned by Manhattan Associates. With 80 per cent of shoppers expecting to raise ‘buy online, pick up in-store’ (BOPIS) and curbside pick-up and 90 per cent preferring home delivery in the next six months, retailers must position themselves to flexibly serve these needs, it says.
‘The New Store Shopper in High-Touch Retail’, an in-store shopper survey covering US shoppers who plan to visit a high-touch retail store (non-grocery) in the next six months, has found COVID-19 has brought radical changes to the retail industry, including a reprioritisation of the store experience for pandemic-era shoppers.Digital is now the front door to the store, says a report from Incisiv commissioned by Manhattan Associates. With 80 per cent of shoppers expecting to raise 'buy online, pick up in-store' (BOPIS) and curbside pick-up and 90 per cent preferring home delivery in the next six months, retailers must position themselves to flexibly serve these needs, it says. #
Stores become hubs of online order fulfillment and safety is the price of entry for the foreseeable future. Eighty five per cent of shoppers have significantly increased curbside pickup orders compared to pre-COVID-19 rates, and 79 per cent say a contactless store pickup is very important to them, according to a company press release.
While 91 per cent of shoppers miss shopping in stores, only 5 per cent plan to try a product in-store in the next six months and only 28 per cent plan to increase in-store shopping. Safety of store experience—be it for in-store purchase or order pickup—is of utmost importance, according to the respondents.
Shoppers find current pickup experiences lacking and rate their recent checkout and pick-up experiences poorly across a variety of parameters, from availability of pick-up slots to wait-times for pick-up once at the store.
Eighty five per cent of shoppers rate the ease of completing an order four stars or higher, but they encounter significant friction getting there, both online and in-store. Eighty one per cent of shoppers rated 3 stars or lower when asked about stores’ availability of preferred pick-up date and time.
Retailers should expect a flood of in-store returns once stores reopen, the survey says. Following months of e-commerce shopping, shoppers are planning to increase in-store visits to return an order or item. In fact, returning an item to the store is the second biggest motivator for future store visits, behind same-day need. Retailers need to be prepared to handle this surge of inventory in store.
The study also indicates that store associates will continue to be seen as an important source of knowledge and insight, but the relationship between the shopper and employee will need to be digitised. For 80 per cent of shoppers, digital communications with store associates over the next six months are ‘likely’ or ‘very likely’.
Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS)
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