The retail landscape has witnessed notable transformations in recent years, with the prominence of Buy Online Pick-Up In Store (BOPIS) services emerging as a significant trend in 2024. Prior to these shifts, BOPIS wasn't a priority service offering for most Shopify merchants. However, according to NVision, 43.7% of the top 500 retailers offer in-store pickup in 2021 (compared to 6.9% prior to the pandemic). However, as consumer behaviors evolved and online order fulfillment faced delays, the convenience of BOPIS gained traction swiftly. This is reflected in the data, as 201 retail chains ranked among the Top 1000, 72.1% offered BOPIS as of early 2022.
Today, the provision of same-day Shopify pickup in store options has become crucial for omnichannel merchants. Consumers increasingly expect the flexibility to order online and retrieve their purchases from the store or curbside within hours, if not minutes. Retailers must prioritize a robust BOPIS strategy to stay competitive. Nonetheless, hastily implementing Shopify pickup in store solutions without considering the customer experience is ill-advised.
Recognizing the significance of BOPIS, Shopify introduced its own store pick-up solutions, prompting many clients to integrate them into their omnichannel order management strategies. However, despite rapid adoption, some direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands leveraging Shopify have not observed a notable positive impact on conversion rates post-launch. Collaborating with these brands, we've refined their Shopify pickup in store strategies to enhance consumer experiences and drive conversion rates.
In this blog, we'll delineate eight recommendations derived from our experiences, aimed at aiding DTC brands in optimizing the ROI of their Shopify store pick-up initiatives. These recommendations serve as an indispensable checklist for brands embarking on the journey of launching a BOPIS program on Shopify in 2024.
1. Show a “pick-up In Store” option on your Product Detail Page (PDP) instead of your Checkout Page
Research indicates that 50% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase if the product is either available for same-day pick-up or if the shipping is free.
Same-day BOPIS is the perfect strategy to meet today’s customers’ expectations of fast and free delivery, however, customers need to be made aware that same-day BOPIS is an option and that’s where most retailers fail.
It’s crucial to showcase real-time in-store availability for same-day pick-up directly on the “product detail page (PDP)” because this is where customers make their decision to buy a product.
Most, if not all, of the apps on the Shopify store that allow for in-store pick-up show BOPIS options exclusively on the “checkout page”. This often leads to lost sales which could have been avoided if the customers had known that in-store pick-up was an option, while they were browsing the products online.
If you’re looking for ways to increase conversion rates, showing customers the option of store pick-up on the PDP is an immediate win. Just like fast shipping and in-store return policies, same-day store pick-up is a critical element in a customer’s decision-making process (which happens before they reach the check-out page!)
Here’s an example, by displaying which products are available for immediate pickup at specific stores, you can ensure a smoother BOPIS experience for customers just like how Perry Ellis does.
2. Use location searches to help shoppers easily find the right store for pick-up
Shopify's current setup lacks search and filter options for customers selecting a store for pick-up, causing inconvenience, especially for retailers with multiple locations. Customers often encounter difficulties navigating through a lengthy list of stores, including those far from their location.
Offering basic search capabilities to customers will help them in finding the right which could be the difference between a conversion and a lost sale. With keyword search and zip code search, retailers can refine the search for their customers and allow access to relevant options more efficiently. By implementing keyword functionality, customers can input specific terms related to their desired store location, whereas, zip code functionality would enable the system to generate nearby stores for a quicker selection process.
Moreover, leveraging customers' IP addresses could further optimize the store selection process. By cross-referencing the listed stores with customers' IP addresses, the system can provide personalized recommendations based on their geographical location.
For reference, retailers can adopt strategies similar to Perry Ellis by implementing the "Store Mode" functionality which enables real-time in-store product availability display, allowing customers to quickly identify items they can pick up immediately from their preferred store.
3. Offer same-day store pick-up instead of two-day pick-up
Many Shopify merchants claim to offer store pick-up, but when we ask how many days it takes to fulfill a Shopify pickup in store order, the answer is more than one day. This happens because they don’t have the tools to connect their Shopify order management platform to their Point of Sale. As a result, they can’t access real-time product availability information and have to ship that product to the store from the warehouse.
This is a ship-to-store strategy, not a BOPIS strategy. It’s a good fall-back for retailers to offer as an alternative when a product is out of stock, but an ideal store pick-up order should be fulfilled on the same day, preferably within a few hours of the customer placing the order. In many cases, customers are near a store location when they place a Shopify pickup in store order and expect immediate delivery. Imagine the disappointment! Instead of letting your customers down, invest in the right inventory tools to gain real-time inventory visibility and improve your BOPIS experience.
4. Allow mixed shopping carts
SSometimes, customers want to place an order for both “store pick-up” and “delivery,” meaning they want some items in their order to be delivered at home and some to be picked up from the store. This is called a mixed shopping cart.
Unfortunately, Shopify does not allow mixed carts as the following excerpt is taken directly from the Shopify documentation:
“Products that require shipping and products that are only pickup can't be in the same cart. If a customer tries to check out with both types of products, then an error message displays that products are out of stock.”
When this happens, customers are forced to place two separate orders, and we all know what that means. Many customers don’t want to repeat the checkout process, deciding instead to abandon one of their purchases.
Allowing mixed carts is yet another quick win that will immediately result in increased conversion rates and a far superior online shopping experience. Perry Ellis is among the retailers that allow customers to select mixed cart orders. It's a small detail, but one that makes a big difference in the overall shopping experience.
5. Notify store personnel in real-time
If you are offering Shopify pickup in store option to customers, you should ideally aim to fulfill it on the same-day, preferably within 2 hours. To make this happen, every step of order processing has to be agile.
Instead, customers often place store pick-up orders and store personnel have no idea, so they don’t start preparing the order until the customer walks in. Alternatively, some retailers check store pick-up orders every 1-2 hours and prepare them in bulk. In both of these cases, customers have to wait for their orders after arriving at the store, adding friction to the customer experience and reducing repeat BOPIS purchases. After all, the whole point of BOPIS is to skip long queues in-store!
To avoid this poor customer experience, your Omnichannel Order Management system must notify retail store associates about store pick-up orders in as close to real-time as possible, so that they can begin processing these orders immediately and greet customers with a bag. These updates can be communicated through email, SMS, or push notifications to their mobile POS.
6. Offer alternate fulfillment options to save store pick-up orders instead of canceling them
According to the Auburn University RFID Lab, the average level of inventory accuracy for U.S. retailers is 65%: this means that more than a third of the time, the average retailer cannot tell if they have inventory in stock, leading to loss of sales. That statistic is so concerning it’s almost difficult to believe!
Most retailers accept store pick-up orders by checking against store inventory in the system. If system inventory does not match the physical inventory in stores, retailers fail to fulfill those orders due to widespread inaccuracies. This results in the direct cancellation of store pick-up orders and an unpleasant customer experience, which drives shoppers away from the brand.
Instead of canceling store pick-up orders for products that are out of stock, provide your customers with alternative options, such as pick-up from another location or delivery to their address. This saves store pick-up orders that may have otherwise been lost and provides a much more seamless experience overall.
7. Log inventory variances for unavailable store pick-up products
When store pick-up products are not available in stores, retail store associates can either cancel the order or offer alternate fulfillment options. However, if this product’s inventory status is not communicated accurately to Shopify eCommerce, customers will continue placing orders for this product despite it being out of stock.
It’s very important to log inventory variance in real-time, so that customers are not placing repeat store pick-up orders for products that are unavailable in-store. Retail store associates should be equipped with the tools to accurately log inventory variance and communicate it to Shopify immediately. Ideally, this out-of-stock variance should be logged as soon as the retailer rejects the SKU, reducing the need to perform additional cycle counts.
8. Utilize dashboards to measure the success of your BOPIS strategy
“You cannot manage what you cannot measure.” This saying absolutely holds true when it comes to BOPIS initiatives. Using a dashboard to measure KPIs and understand where problems exist in your sales process is critical to ensuring the successful launch of your BOPIS strategy.
Upon launch, many retail brands experience high cancellations, hurting both the customer experience and the band’s profitability and productivity. These cancellations can occur for a variety of reasons, and utilizing a store dashboard helps the customer success team understand where issues lie in the BOPIS program.
Some critical metrics to include in your dashboard:
- BOPIS Fill-Rate
A high fill-rate means stores are fulfilling a higher number of BOPIS orders with low cancellation rates, and a low fill-rate reflects a higher number of BOPIS order cancellations. By focusing on fill-rate, retail leaders can dive deeper to uncover the reasons for low rates in certain product groups, such as inventory inaccuracy, negligence of store personnel, etc.
- High-performing stores
Identifying and rewarding stores that have high success rates in fulfilling BOPIS orders helps to establish competition among stores and promote the adoption of this new initiative.
- Top-performing products
It's very important to identify products with the highest BOPIS demand. This helps the merchandising team with allocation planning.
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While working closely with retail brands for implementing Shopify pickup in store, we’ve seen all eight of these proven strategies not only to help brands improve their productivity and profitability, but increase conversion rates, customer satisfaction, and overall life-time value. However, you might be left scratching your head and wondering how you can actually implement these strategies, as they are all unavailable within Shopify’s solutions.
HotWax Commerce’s Order Management for Shopify has pre-integration with Shopify Plus and Shopify POS that empowers your team to easily implement all of these recommendations and transform your Shopify Pickup In Store initiative. Request a consultation with the HotWax Commerce team of experts to learn how we can optimize your omnichannel order management.
