Among the trends that will most impact the e-commerce world will be a strengthening of integration between the physical store and the online store. This is the finding of the research E-commerce in Italy 2022, conducted by Casaleggio and Associates. In this process of channel fusion, also known as multichannel (or omnichannel), Click & Collect represents a real growth lever for merchants and large-scale retail.
What is the Click & Collect?
Click & Collect is a service, an option that allows users shopping on an e-commerce platform to order a product online and pick it up in a physical store.
This technological and digital innovation is receiving a lot of attention in companies of various sizes, but especially in those with one or more physical, well-organized and easily accessible stores. Thanks to Click & Collect, in fact, the entrepreneur can create a winning synergy between two business assets (the physical store and the e-commerce platform) and, as a result, devise multichannel sales strategies most effective than traditional ones because they are limited by the availability of only one sales channel (exclusively physical or solely digital).
Click & Collect: how it works
The operation of Click & Collect is quite simple to understand. Of course, it is essential to have a physical store in order to pick up products that have been purchased online. It is necessary to be equipped with an enabled e-commerce platform that allows the buyer to choose between home delivery by courier, or picking up the product at one or more company-operated outlets distributed throughout the territory. Once the order is placed, the e-commerce platform will check the actual availability of the item in the chosen physical store before transmitting the information so that the staff can prepare everything necessary for the customer to pick it up.
To enable the Click and Collect function and benefit from its advantages, it is important to have the technical intervention of a development team that masters the CMS (Content Management System) chosen, such as Magento 2 or Shopify (among the best solutions on the market). Usually this is done by installing a dedicated module, performing custom machining, or configuring and enabling the platform through a precise setup. To do these operations, it would be best to avoid risky do-it-yourself procedures, because they could compromise the proper functioning of the platform.
Key benefits of Click & Collect
Below is a series of benefits that Click & Collect can generate for merchants and customers alike:
Benefits for merchants:
- Bringing customers acquired through the e-commerce platform into the physical store;
- Improve customer loyalty;
- Improve sales, after-sales and customer service;
- Save on the cost of shipping goods;
- Check the availability of certain products in specific warehouses or physical stores.
Benefits for customers:
- Check product availability;
- Ability to physically see and try the product;
- Receive assistance, suggestions, and insightful information from vendors in the physical store;
- Saving on delivery costs;
- Getting returns easily.
Click & Collect represents an excellent growth opportunity for entrepreneurs who have realized the strategic value of multichannel as a lever of developing their online and offline business.
