Click & Collect Poised For Solid Growth

There will be twice as many online shoppers in the UK making use of click & collect options in 2017 than at present, Planet Retail predicts.

The retail intelligence provider states that currently 35% of online shoppers in the country order products from a store’s website and collect them from a local branch, compared to 13% in the US and 5% in Germany. By 2017, however, the percentage of UK shoppers using this option is likely to hit 76%, according to the report.

This projected increase seems logical when considering that the cost of shipping and inconvenient delivery times are usually cited by online shoppers as their top annoyances, Planet Retail’s global research director Natalie Berg, noted. Click & Collect is about to see notable growth in the coming years as shoppers in the UK become accustomed to browsing and making deals on their own terms; fulfillment is the last piece of the puzzle and is due to become a key part of retailers’ success, she added.

It seems, however, that retailers have a long way to go before adequately adjusting to shoppers’ changing behaviour. Around two-thirds of the country’ top 50 retailers are yet to offer click & collect options to customers and only 14% of sector players offer more than one option for collection.

Retailers need to start thinking outside the box and turn their attention to train stations, schools and even shoppers’ own vehicles, as all have the potential to become collection points in the future, Berg says. They should be ready to nurture and create new relationships with non-traditional partners in order to answer the needs of their customer, she advises.