MANHATTAN, Kan., Nov. 5, 2018 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- While the role of ecommerce continues to change the landscape for both pure-play and brick and mortar channels, savvy retailers are leveraging their physical locations by integrating them with their online experiences. The buy online, pick-up in store (BOPIS) revolution is changing the way consumers interact with retailers - and this holiday season will showcase its transformative role. The Kibo 2018 Consumer Trends study shows nearly 80 percent of shoppers use BOPIS and half are willing to remain loyal to brands who offer it. For that reason, Package Concierge®, the innovator of the automated locker system, is helping retailers not just survive, but thrive in today's dynamic retail environment with tips to ensure the success of their BOPIS strategy.
"As the leading automated locker solution provider, our systems are a critical hub for seamless BOPIS fulfillment. As a result, we have a unique prevue into how retailers can ensure they are best positioned to master this fulfillment revolution," said Penny Lasater, Head of Package Concierge Retail. "Consumers are increasingly utilizing BOPIS because it's convenient and allows them fast and frictionless order fulfillment; it's a business imperative for retailers to continue to look for ways to improve the BOPIS customer experience in the coming year."
Package Concierge is providing some guidelines to help retailers continually refine and improve the BOPIS customer experience. The best place to start is by evaluating your current activities:
Step 1: Evaluate your communication: Make sure you have a thorough and clear communications plan to educate consumers about BOPIS and your specific process. Visibly promote this in-demand service on your website, in the email/text communication with your customer, and with in-store signage. Survey the customer post transaction to identify any pain points they experienced and use the information to improve your process moving forward.
Step 2: Evaluate your team: Make sure your team is ready and armed with what they need to be successful. Develop an internal cross-functional group that will continually review every aspect of the business –fulfillment to IT, and ecommerce to payment processing, to ensure seamless integration with existing systems. Then, invest in quality employee training to ensure compliance with executing the identified best practices.
Step 3: Evaluate your inventory: The success of BOPIS lives and dies with inventory visibility. If you don't have strong visibility into the availability of items, then your customers don't either, which makes BOPIS a painful strategy. A fully transparent and integrated system alleviates employee and customer frustration of offering products that are out of stock or no longer available. Shoppers are not likely to wait for an item that isn't in available, opting instead for a retailer where it is ready for immediate pick up.
Step 4: Evaluate your process: Begin by becoming a secret shopper and trying out the experience at other retailers who also offer BOPIS to see the process from a different vantage point. Pay close attention to the timing of the process to see if there are ways to improve it; comparing BOPIS execution in the broader market to spur out of the box thinking.
Step 5: Evaluate your Success Metrics: Set up reporting to provide quick insight into the ROI of your BOPIS offering and trend information that may highlight any areas that need additional attention. Also consider sending BOPIS satisfaction surveys to assess how you are doing and include plenty of open-ended questions for consumer feedback where you can learn how best to tweak your program. From Package Concierge's customer satisfaction surveys, 96 percent said they would use the BOPIS automated locker again.
For more information about Package Concierge and its solution, please visit http://www.packageconcierge.com/retail. And for more on news from Package Concierge multifamily that was also announced today, please visit: http://www.prweb.com/releases/package_concierge_expands_leadership_team_and_announces_predictions_for_holiday_shipments/prweb15868319.htm
About Package Concierge
Package Concierge is the innovator of the automated locker system. Made in America with design and cutting-edge technology at its core, Package Concierge is the highest-quality solution in the industry, as the only secure and seamlessly integrated system for 24/7 package management that also meets all fire and safety standards. From its intuitive mobile app to shipping and returns, Package Concierge makes package management hassle-free for residents, property managers and retailers. Package Concierge was acquired by Gibraltar Industries in 2017. For more information, visit http://packageconcierge.com/.
SOURCE Package Concierge®
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