Are you wondering what “BOPIS” or “clicks to bricks” mean? Are you looking for a reliable list of the top 100 retail terms?🤔
Success in retail today involves an increasing number of technologies and concepts. But who has the time to keep up with new terms when you’re busy running retail stores?
Don’t worry, TAKU Retail has got you covered. Whether you’re a long-time retailer or a new merchant, we’re here to make things easier for you. Don’t waste time looking at questionable resources online.
As former retailers themselves, our founders have prepared a list of the most used retail terms in a searchable, sortable retail glossary. Click below for the only retail dictionary you’ll ever need.
TAKU Retail continues to be the best go-to tool for your retail needs. Besides our retail glossary, check out our free blog resources to find other ways to improve your business. All of our blog posts are written for retail owners.
In addition to store pickup, merchants can also offer ship out fulfillment options. When we talk about ship out, we are talking about local delivery and third party shipping.
So, while it is definitely possible to sell online without offering delivery. If you’re able to add shipping to your operations, setting it up in your online store may be easier than you think.
Let’s take a look at both fulfillment options and review how they can provide added convenience for you and your shoppers.
Local delivery refers to fulfilling orders in the same area (same town, city or region) that your retail business is located in. How it works is simple. Customers buy your products online, and someone hand delivers the orders straight to their doorsteps.
With local delivery, a business can either choose to deliver the orders themselves or use an on-demand delivery service such as Uber. Local delivery is different from regular third-party shipping because it often does not require as much packing materials and the delivery time can be much faster. And, of course, the fees charged by on-demand delivery services are the highest.
Regardless of who is handling the local delivery, it’s important to remember that it needs to be done efficiently for it to be cost effective, as it can be expensive if you’re hand delivering products even using your own staff.
Local delivery has been particularly popular since the pandemic started as merchants have been able to keep existing store staff on payroll by assigning them to make nearby deliveries when store traffic is down.
How to set up in-house local delivery.
From your TAKU eCommerce control panel, click on “Shipping & Pickup”.
Click “Set Up Local Delivery”.
Choose which rates you would like to set up. Decide on your preferences for:
Free delivery
Conditional free delivery
Flat rate
Custom Rates
Enter the name for this delivery option as well as a description for your customers. This is the name that will be visible to shoppers during checkout in your online store. If you choose to add a flat or custom rate, set up your rates.
If needed, you can limit availability to only store operating hours in order to make this delivery option available on certain business days or hours of the week.
You can click on “Limit Availability by order subtotal” to specify a minimum order subtotal to make sure that you only offer local delivery on orders over a certain dollar value.
Click on “Set delivery zone” and choose “zone on map” or “advanced settings” to make sure you aren’t offering local delivery beyond a certain area.
Add an order fulfillment time. This will be how much time you need to prepare the online orders you receive. For example, 1 business day or a daily cut-off time for next day delivery.
Since the start of the pandemic, local delivery has been in high demand with shoppers. But if you’re managing local delivery yourself, you want to be efficient with how you manage your deliveries. It is costly for any store to deliver to local shoppers everywhere at the same time.
This is why we offer the option for stores to ask shoppers for both, delivery dates and times at checkout if they choose to use store pickup. You can now offer delivery time slots during the specific times you will be delivering in a given area. For example, you can offer free delivery to addresses within 1km and offer delivery to areas outside of this free zone only on specific days. This way, you and your staff are only delivering orders area by area which is both more cost effective and sets the right expectation for shoppers.
Many retailers going online for the first time often think that shipping out is the only way to sell online. However, many successful online merchants will pick and choose the products they offer for shipping. They also use shipping strategies to increase their profitability and stand out from competitors.
Carriers such as FedEx, UPS and USPC calculate shipping costs based on weight or dimensional weight of products. This is something you want to think about before selling a product online. With TAKU eCommerce, it’s possible for you to specify the shipping method for every product. This means that you can offer only store pickup and exclude ship out options for products that are too fragile or costly to deliver.
Shipping costs will vary depending on destination. For example, if you offer shipping to remote locations or internationally, shipping fees will naturally be higher.
Some shoppers may want to pay for expedited shipping for faster delivery. This option is usually calculated and offered automatically by the carrier you choose to use based on availability for the destination.
If your products are of high quality or higher value you may want to insure your shipments which will again increase your shipping costs.
While shoppers always prefer flat shipping fees (where free shipping isn’t available), TAKU eCommerce also gives you the option to charge shoppers the actual cost including things such as insurance if you use the integrated shippers in the system.
Shipping fees are the number one reason behind abandoned shopping carts. If you can afford it, consider offering free shipping to increase sales on your online store. It’s best to offer free shipping on products where you make more profit but do not often require extra packaging or handling. You can also offer free shipping only on products that are being shipped locally, as the cost for local orders will not be as high.
To make up for shipping costs, you can increase the price of your products slightly or you can set a minimum order size to ensure that the orders are worth accepting.
Retailers using mainstream shipping services for example USPS, FedEx, UPS or Canada post, can charge shoppers the actual cost that they’re being charged by these carriers. E-commerce platforms such as TAKE eCommerce allow merchants to receive automatic online shipping rates from carriers directly during checkout. Depending on the shipper, it may be possible to add additional features such as Signature Required, Proof of Age Required, etc.
If you need more complex calculations for shipping costs, consider using tiered rates that you can base off of order subtotals or order weights.
Remember that you also have the option of manually adding the carrier’s shipping rate for various order weight ranges if you’re using a carrier that is not already integrated with TAKU.
Flat rate shipping is best for retailers who deliver products themselves, or sell products of similar weight or size. For example, merchants can charge 10$ for every local delivery from their store. Many merchants will use flat rate shipping even when their shipping costs aren’t the same to make it simpler for shoppers. In cases like this, the idea is that you may not always cover the cost of your shipping. But on average, it should even out as you will get larger orders and smaller orders that will cost you less.
Many stores consider shipping costs to be an indirect cost of business now. This is similar to how you would think of marketing to sell online.
We hope that you have enjoyed our blog post and video series. For more information on how you can take leverage your physical store to sell online easily, please visit our blog or follow us on social media.
Happy retailing!
Take a look at our other steps by clicking one of the chapters below!
Step 1 – Be found onlineStep 2 – Online product showcaseStep 3 – Online storeStep 4 – Store pickupStep 5 – Local delivery or shipment
Now that you have successfully taken payments and orders online, the next step will be offering store pickup for your online orders. Step 4 focuses on why setting up store pickup is more cost-effective for retailers offering e-commerce.
In this blog post, we’ll cover how you can offer store pickup as an easy way for your local customer to get the products they order online quickly, and at a lower cost to you.
Benefits of offering pickup, to both retailers and customers.
Store pickup gives customers the option to buy the products online and stop by your store to pick up their order. With store pickup, staff place prepared orders in a specific store pickup area or place them right into customers cars outside.
Compared to in-store shopping, store pickup allows retailers to continue selling even when people aren’t allowed in the store. During the pandemic, this allowed stores to reduce contact, making it a safer option at the time.
Some people might ask, “Why offer store pickup when shipping is available?” but there are some major benefits to both retailers and customers including:
As a retailer, you save on the shipping and packing costs including both materials and the time for staff to pack orders when you offer store pickup. This helps to keep costs down for shoppers since you don’t need to buy packing materials, charge delivery fees to cover your costs or offer free shipping, and shoppers don’t need to deal with all the waste created by shipping cartons, etc.
Shoppers expect free shipping today with online shopping, but stores can only cover the cost of it when orders are above a certain size. Yet having a minimum for free shipping makes shoppers more likely to not complete checkout online. Pickup allows you to reduce, or get rid of online order size minimums. This will increase the chance that every shopper buys something. Similarly, customers that pick up in store are more likely to buy other things when they are already in the store.
More than half (50.1%) of BOPIS consumers state that they have made an additional, impulse purchase in a store where they were picking up already-purchased items. (Source)
Even if a store sells mainly large or delicate products that are not suitable for delivery, you can still offer online ordering to your customers if you offer store pickup during online checkout.
Even before the Pandemic, shipping delays were a problem, especially during peak periods. Given the overall increase in e-commerce and the ongoing labor shortage, this has only gotten worse. Store pickup gives merchants the ability to turn around local orders faster. There’s no packing involved and nearby customers can get products they need faster, even while supporting their own local main street stores.
While there are more tools available now to help shoppers buy online, e-commerce sales continue to have a higher percentage of returns versus in-store sales. Store pickup is one way to reduce costly returns. This way, merchants can avoid extra shipping costs and damages during the return shipment. Shoppers are less likely to return items they have already checked when they pick up in store.
Online processing fees are usually more expensive than in-store payments using card terminals. While getting upfront payment is useful to reduce the risk of the customer not showing up, an omnichannel platform such as TAKU will also allow stores to offer in-store payment during store pickup. Not only does this lower the cost of payment processing, offering in-store returns or exchanges on online purchases can help to reduce the extra processing costs of refunds too.
E-commerce has been a great innovation, but the real benefit for small business comes when it is easily offered with store pickup to give local merchants an advantage compared to larger competitors who often cannot match nearby stores for speed and service.
How to start offering store pickup with TAKU.
Using TAKU as an example, here is how store pickup works once you have products and payments set up in your system:
Add a pickup option in your online store. TAKU eCommerce gives retailers the option of displaying pickup dates and times at checkout. Make sure to include pickup instructions including how and where customers can pick up their orders. Don’t forget to include the store phone number and what ID is necessary to verify the order.
When a customer places an order on your website, the customer can now select a pickup date and time.
Once an order is finalized, you and your customer will get notified about the order. Depending on when the customer is scheduled to pick up his or her order, you or your staff can start preparing the order. TAKU has a built-in packing list for staff to easily pick orders
If you’re using the scheduled store pickup feature, you just need to have the order ready for the confirmed date and time. Otherwise it’s always recommended for you to notify the customer when their order is ready for pickup by changing the Fulfillment Status within TAKU to Completed. Once that it done, the customer will automatically get a notification that the order is ready and your Delivery Status will change to Ready for Pickup.
Make sure that you have clear signage at you store to direct customers to your store pickup area. If your pickup area is unmanned, include instructions for your pickup process.
Remember to remind shoppers about your store pickup person verification policy so they are ready with their IDs if necessary.
If you are limiting exposure and there is parking nearby your store, you can offer the option for staff to bring orders out to customers’ cars.
Hopefully this blog post has helped to explain the many benefits of offering store pickup. Don’t forget to check out the next blog post and videos in our series which covers how local delivery and shipping works with online stores.
Check out our other steps on moving your store online by clicking on the buttons below.
Step 1 – Be found onlineStep 2 – Online product showcaseStep 3 – Online storeStep 4 – Store pickupStep 5 – Local delivery or shipment
