Low-Touch Order Fulfillment
The health pandemic has sped up what was already in motion: a move towards a lower-touch, smoother fulfillment with curbside pickup. Big box stores had already launched curbside pickup, and the spring of 2020 saw the adoption ramp up in huge numbers.
As customers become educated and aware, curbside pickup is becoming a customer expectation alongside the more traditional ways of customers get their orders. For businesses, curbside pickup offers benefits: getting people to the stores, reducing shipping cost, and protecting customer and staff safety.
During this health crisis, low touch fulfillment allows compliance, protects vulnerable populations, and helps reduce the spread of disease.
Even as the curve flattens, curbside pickup has great value for shoppers and can make more products accessible to a greater number of people. Here are a few scenarios:
- For parents with kids in cars, curbside pickup saves the headache of moving kids from carseats to shopping carts.
- For shoppers where home delivery isn’t safe or easy (there’s not a safe place for storage if no one is home, for example), curbside pickup ensures that products get to the customer safely.
- For bulky, fragile, or unwieldy purchases, curbside pickup can help shoppers with difficulty moving bulky items from shelf to cart to car, and can ensure (where delivery may not) that fragile items arrive intact.
We looked at curbside pickup among other order options, comparing the comfort, convenience, safety, and cost:
- In-store
- Buy online, pick up in store (BOPIS)
- Curbside pickup
- eCommerce and delivery
