Contactless Delivery: Is ‘Curbside Pickup’ the New Click and Collect?

The rise in online sales has spurred innovative delivery methods to enhance user experience and meet customer needs, with curbside pickup emerging as a frontrunner. Today, the challenge goes beyond timely deliveries within customer-selected time slots to include new safety protocols and promoting contactless delivery.

BOPIS or Click and Collect

BOPIS, short for “Buy Online, Pickup In Store,” also known as Click and Collect, allows customers to purchase online and pick up their items at their convenience, bypassing the need to wait at home for a delivery. More and more companies are adopting this service, as it reduces wait times, enhances customer satisfaction, and helps stores cut delivery and staffing costs.

In the United States, a new delivery method has emerged among brands already offering BOPIS: curbside pickup. This innovation is now making its way to Europe.

Curbside Pickup

Curbside pickup provides a perfect contactless delivery solution, enabling customers to collect their orders without entering the store. Initially, this method was limited to retailers selling heavy and bulky items, like furniture or appliances, and stores on the outskirts of cities with ample space for curbside deliveries.

During the first half of 2020, with store closures due to quarantine, curbside pickup gained significant importance in enhancing user experience and provided new opportunities for stores to continue sales.

Curbside Pickup: A Concept Here to Stay

While stores have reopened, social distancing remains crucial, and avoiding crowded stores is essential. Shoppers are less inclined to browse through large stores, impacting in-store traffic. Consumers unfamiliar with online shopping have discovered the benefits of eCommerce and are likely to continue, making a robust delivery strategy essential.

This service, an evolution of click and collect, eliminates the need for customers to enter the store, allowing them to receive their orders directly in their cars without waiting in line or for a home delivery.

Moreover, during peak sales periods, home deliveries can be delayed. Curbside pickup provides a quick and contactless alternative.

Curbside Pickup Arrives in Europe

This service has already reached Europe, and we will see more retailers incorporating it into their BOPIS delivery methods. The French furniture retailer BUT, using Orisha Retail Chains’ store software in over 300 stores, has adapted its Click and Collect service to offer curbside pickup, transforming 60 of its stores into order preparation centers.

Although all their stores are operational and adhere to limited capacity recommendations, customers can make purchases on BUT’s online store, reserve items available at their nearest store, and pick them up via a simple appointment system.

Specific protocols have been developed to avoid any contact between customers and employees. Customers can present their order confirmation through the car window. Once the order is verified and the product is ready, the store employee will place it directly in the car trunk, ensuring no physical contact.

In France, consumers have embraced this new BOPIS delivery method enthusiastically. Although it may seem like a passing trend, a McKinsey & Company survey revealed that the use of curbside pickup by French consumers increased by 85% during the quarantine, with over a third intending to continue using it.

Connecting all sales channels strategically enables efficient order management and readiness for any market changes.

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