For years, bricks-and-clicks retailers have had a big competitive advantage over their clicks-only rivals. They can enable online shoppers to buy online and pick up the order in the store. Usually, at a nearby store on the same day of the order. Now, this tactic — known as BOPUS — is much more utilized. Hence, today’s post. BOPUS gaining steam.
First, take a look at other related pricing posts:
- Designing a Better Pricing Strategy
- Psychology and Pricing
- Know If a Sale Is Really a Sale
- Sensitive Topic – Raising Prices
BOPUS Gaining Steam with Shoppers
Consider these observations by Blake Droesch, writing for eMarketer:
“In 2018, the number of locations offering “buy online, pick up in-store” (BOPUS) nearly doubled among leading U.S. grocery retailers. Indeed, Walmart (and various partners), Target/Shipt, Kroger/Instacart, Ahold, and Albertsons brought their collective number of click-and-collect locations from 2,451 in January 2018 to 5,800 in December 2018. This according to data from CommonSense Robotics.”.
“During 2019, competition will further heat up. In January, Walmart doubled down on its digital grocery efforts with a splashy new campaign promoting Walmart Grocery Pickup. It also announced that the program would be available in 1,000 additional locations by yearend. Just last month, news broke that Amazon planned to open a new grocery chain that will be its own distinct entity separate from Whole Foods, which it acquired in 2017. Also, Target is keen on BOPUS. The company announced in January that its store pickup and “Drive Up” programs grew more than 60% year over year in 2018.”
According to research sponsored by McKinsey, BOPUS is more popular in the United Kingdom, the United States, and France than in Germany. To see the popularity of delivery, store pickup, and kiosk pickup in these four countries, read below.