Click and collect shopping is often slightly cheaper than traditional online shopping as there is no charge to have an online order delivered to your home. Photo / 123RF
Buying online, then picking up the order in-store, is a way of shopping New Zealand retailers are pushing - and investing in.
Online shopping has been around for decades and has grown in recent years, it now accounts for more than 8 per cent of the country's overall retail spend. But click and collect - seen as a combination of online and traditional in-store shopping - is only beginning to pick up in popularity.
Retailers and shopping centre property managers have noticed the trend, and are increasingly jumping on the hybrid bandwagon.
Click and collect shopping has reached great heights in Britain and the United States, where parcel pick-up hubs have popped up in some most unusual places.
In the UK, major supermarkets Sainsbury's and Tesco trialled click and collect pick-up points in some of London's tube station. Meanwhile, US department store chain Nordstrom has its own dedicated stores for parcel collections. And e-commerce giant Amazon even has parcel collection points in some mainstream supermarkets.
While there are no official figures for the percentage of retail sales made through click and collect in this country, retail analysts say the medium is growing in popularity among consumers.
New Zealand's largest retailer, The Warehouse, and supermarket giant Pak'nSave are just two major retail operations leading the click and collect movement in this country.
Kiwi Property Group, which owns the country's largest shopping mall, Sylvia Park, has also noticed the uptake in click and collect. As a result it is gearing up to launch "click and collect car parks" from June 1 - dedicated parking spaces for customers to use to pop in and out of the mall for a short time.
"We've identified three car park [areas] where there will be specifically click and collect car parks - they'll be easily identifiable," says Linda Trainer, general manager of retail at Kiwi Property.
"What people will be able to do is come into these specific car parks, come into the centre, collect your item and then get out as quickly as you can."
If successful, Kiwi Property will introduce the same initiative at its other shopping centres, such as The Plaza in Palmerston North, Westgate near Auckland and Northlands in Christchurch.
Trainer says Sylvia Park had recognised the convenience and appeal of click and collect. "Retail now is about omni-channel strategies, a theme of integration between the retailer and customer. Click and collect offers great customer convenience ... customers can order an item, know that it's going to be waiting for them and don't have to worry about it being out of stock.
"If they go to pick it up and it doesn't fit or the colour isn't quite right, they can change it on the spot. There are no worries about returns or delivery fees - it's faster and much more convenient."
Sylvia Park retailers say up to 30 per cent of their sales are now coming via click and collect, and Trainer says about 1 million people live within a 10km radius of Sylvia Park mall, so the move to adopting a click and collect strategy makes sense.
The growth of domestic online sales is now growing more quickly than international online sales, indicating that people are now buying more locally. Trainer believes this is partly because of click and collect.
More than 70 per cent of shoppers in Britain already use click and collect.
"Sometimes customers miss deliveries, sometimes they live in an apartment block and have concerns about leaving parcels outside their apartments so click and collect really services their needs as well."
Retail analyst and industry commentator Chris Wilkinson says click and collect is another way retailers can "get themselves in front of consumers".
"It's a continual challenge to try and remain relevant for retailers and it enables new conversations you can have with consumers. Consumers have increasingly busy lifestyles and this is one of the responses to that."
As people get busier, click and collect is likely to grow in popularity, Wilkinson says.
People are really changing the way they prioritise their time ... and that has reprioritised shopping.
"People are really changing the way they prioritise their time ... and that has reprioritised shopping in people's minds, particularly chore shopping, which they are looking to expedite in any way they possibly can."
Some Nordstrom stores in the US have click and collect hubs in their entrances, and this is becoming a standard model for many retailers.
"Once you've got someone in the store, even if it's just inside the 'lease line' as we call them, there is chance they will browse further."
Wilkinson says click and collect hubs and locations have "greater relevance" in city centres as people's lifestyles are changing and getting busier.
He says as this increases, consumers can expect to see click and collect hubs built into malls and supermarkets. In Australia, for example, Scentre Group, the operator of Westfield shopping centres, has built Koru lounge-style areas to pick up click and collect parcels.
Sixty stores at Sylvia Park now offer click and collect shopping, including Zara, Country Road, Barkers and Rodd & Gunn.
Pak'nSave at Sylvia Park now has click and collect lockers inside the mall, and dedicated click and collect car parking spaces, in a sign of how popular this way of shopping has become.
Supermarket owner-operator Craig McKeown says there has been steady growth in the adoption of click and collect at the store.
"Click and collect is proving to be so popular that we've added more pick-up option times in response to customer demand for the offering," McKeown says.
"We're always listening to what our customers want and they want value, convenience and simplicity. Customers love click and collect for their long shops or for after school pick-ups when they might be pressed for time."
"Red Shed" retailer The Warehouse this month implemented a 5m-tall click and collect tower capable of holding up to 300 parcels outside its Sylvia Park store.
The Warehouse has partnered up with Estonian technology firm Cleveron, which develops the vending machine-like towers and technology which automates the click and collect process for parcel collection. The same technology is used by some of the world's largest retailers, including Walmart, which has 2000 in use throughout the world.
The Warehouse will trial the technology for the next three months, with the intention of rolling it out to its network of stores.
Earlier in the month, The Warehouse chief executive Pejman Okhovat said the click and collect tower was one of several initiatives it was trialling to enhance its shopping experience.
Online sales at The Warehouse are increasing and account for just over 5 per cent of all sales, according to group's latest financial report. The retailer has experienced double-digit growth in online sales for the past two years.
About a third of online orders at The Warehouse are through click and collect.
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