Click and Collect: a winning strategy for your business!

Are you looking to implement a Click and Collect strategy? This principle of online reservation or e-reservation is now well known: customers visiting your site can reserve a product on the web (click), then go to the selected store to collect it (collect). Offering this service means reaching consumers who are increasingly inclined to use new technologies during their shopping experience.

With the digital transformation of businesses, retailers are increasingly adopting "phygital" strategies. By blurring the boundaries between the web and the physical store, they create a complete, multi-channel shopping experience. Click and Collect is the successful alliance between e-commerce and local commerce, based on a web-to-store approach (from the digital space to the physical world).

Free and convenient for consumers, efficient and opportunity-generating for retailers, this system has it all! But what are the stakes and what are the keys to successful and efficient implementation? We'll find out in this article.

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Click and Collect: definition

What is click and collect?

Click and Collect is a purchasing method that enables customers to reserve or order products available in-store online, and then go to their chosen physical store to collect them.

Only those stores that have the product in stock will be offered as collection points to the Internet user.

Click and collect: e-reservation vs. in-store collection

This principle is similar to online sales, but in this case it's more like e-reservation. In fact, it's not the equivalent of online purchasing: no online payment, the customer only takes out their bank card at a later stage, in-store.

💡Please note: this is not the same principle as in-store collection. With this purchasing method, the product is made available to the consumer at a relay point within a few days, from an order placed from the e-commerce stock. In other words, the product is delivered from another stock, to one of the collection points chosen by the customer.

How does click and collect work?

Click and Collect combines the advantages of e-commerce with those of the point-of-sale.

In practice, the process involves the following steps:

1. The customer wishes to make an e-booking: he visits your brand's website.
2. They select the product of their choice on the product page.
3. He clicks on the product and is presented with the option "Reserve for free in store" or a similar expression for "Click and Collect".
4. Once this option has been selected, a pop-up window appears, displaying geolocated stores near the customer's home that have the chosen product in stock.
5. All the customer has to do is choose the nearest store and the time that suits them best to collect their goods.
6. Once the online order has been placed, payment is made in-store at the time of collection.

All this takes place in a particularly short timeframe, which requires real-time management of store stocks and the technical resources to ensure smooth operation.

Click and collect examples: Darty, Sephora, Decathlon and Bricorama

Click and Collect Darty

➡️ Household appliances, electronics and cultural products

The brand registered the term Click and Collect in 2009. Not only is this service offered, but Darty goes so far as to encourage customers to take advantage of it with a reward scheme: a €5 discount is applied to certain products purchased via Click and Collect.

Darty

Click and Collect Sephora

➡️ Beauty

The brand's promise is to be able to pick up your purchases free of charge within two hours in store.

Sephora

Click and Collect Decathlon

➡️ Sport and leisure

With its "Click and Collect" service, the brand offers collection within an hour when the product is available in the chosen store. This is just one of a number of delivery options available to the customer: standard, 24-hour or 48-hour delivery, parcel relay or Colissimo, Mondial Relay, letterbox, etc.

Decathlon

Click and Collect Bricorama

➡️ DIY, decoration and gardening

Bricorama offers free in-store collection, with the option of picking up your order within two hours at the chosen Bricorama store. An order confirmation, followed by a collection code, is sent by e-mail and SMS when the order is available.

Bricorama

Tools for an efficient Click and Collect service

Do you have a Click and Collect project for your store? Let's take a look at the tools that can help you set it up, to facilitate the purchasing process.

You want to :

• optimize omnichannel customer relations:
  • What for? To provide product information, improve brand communication by providing direct, reactive and personalized responses to customers, encourage interaction across all channels;
  • which tool? the RingCentral Experience Customer online interaction management platform.
• offer Click and Collect on your e-commerce site:
  • bridge the gap between the physical store and the e-commerce site, offer different delivery options (express delivery, home delivery, point relais or in-store pick-up), online ordering and online booking;
  • which tool? Prestashop ready, the e-commerce site creation tool.
• manage inventory and sales in real time:
  • What for? To have real-time visibility of stock levels and product availability, to synchronize information between the e-commerce site and the point of sale, and to reduce order preparation time;
  • Which tool? Stock management software.

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Customer satisfaction just a click away

For an effective Click and Collect service, the key is to respond to strong customer demand for instant availability of the desired item. To guarantee customer satisfaction, the online reservation, real-time inventory management and order preparation systems must be optimized.

Are you planning to launch a Click and Collect service for your business? If you've already set it up, how are you optimizing it?