What is BOPIS?
Thanks to its popularity with shoppers, Buy Online, Pickup In Store, aka BOPIS, is now a must for retailers. Implementing the service successfully not only requires overhauls to online and store offerings, but a fresh approach to performance metrics to reflect the new omnichannel reality.
Despite the growing popularity and availability of BOPIS, most omnichannel retailers don’t know how it impacts the bottom line. Seven in 10 merchants say they’re unsure whether their BOPIS operation is profitable, according to Incisiv; technology researcher Forrester found just 14% of retailers completely agree that they have the right metrics in place to measure BOPIS omnichannel efforts.
The lack of insight into BOPIS performance may stem from the continuing dominance of the “last-click” mentality concerning retail analytics. Merchants who use last-click attribution credit revenue to the most recent touchpoint shoppers used before ordering. The model is a poor fit for the come-and-go, research-intensive, channel-hopping reality of shopping today,; interestingly, eMarketer found that more than 40% of merchants still assign credit to a single touchpoint.
BOPIS Retail Strategy
For example, retailers could credit the eCommerce site as the driver of BOPIS orders, while assigning purchases of additional items on order pickup to stores — splitting what should be a holistic picture. Siloed data prevents merchants from tracking the efficiency of the BOPIS process from end to end and pinpointing where improvements are needed.
To get an accurate picture of BOPIS’ impact, merchants need to rethink their metrics along with their operations. They should:
1) Obsess Over Time to Delivery — whether in-store, curbside, or at home
BOPIS can meet consumers’ escalating need for swift order fulfillment — but only if retailers deliver on its promise of fast, convenient pickup. Inefficiencies are still rampant; Chain Store Age reports that 77% of retailers primarily ship orders from a central eCommerce distribution center rather than from nearby stores, which could be less costly as well as quicker.
2) Capture and Track Store Associates’ BOPIS-related Activities
Logging staff hours spent on the order pickup desk isn’t enough; merchants should also track who picks how many orders and when, as well as which store zones contain goods most frequently bought via BOPIS orders, and adjust associate assignments accordingly.
3) Survey BOPIS Customers
Merchants should proactively seek customer experience feedback by tapping Buy Online Pickup In Store customers for surveys that specifically address the online/offline experience; this includes online inventory accuracy, navigating the store to the pickup counter, and what other aisles customers shopped on their visit.
