Click and collect is saving the high street

Tuesday, November 3, 2015 - 13:39 by Graham Miller

While many have claimed that safe shopping online will cause the death of bricks and mortar retail, the reality seems to be that consumers are happy to combine both e-commerce activities and high street visits, to meet their needs. And a new report from Saville has shown that in fact, the multichannel retailers which embrace click and collect are growing more quickly than those which are based solely in one market or the other.

Analysts found that 18 per cent of e-commerce sales made in 2014 were delivered to customers via the click and collect method, meaning consumers were keen to place orders online and then head to their local store to pick up the goods on the same day.

In many instances, the use of click and collect means that customers can check whether a particular item is in stock before they hit the high street to search for it. This makes the shopping experience more efficient and gives retailers the added benefit of boosting footfall at their real world outlets.

In the past 12 months, it was found that multichannel retailers have seen online sales increase on average by 21 per cent, which is a significantly higher proportion than the 13 per cent rise registered at sites which only operate via safe shopping online, with no high street presence.

The report also noted the rise in the availability of click and collect services in the past two years, pointing out that just under a third of outlets offered it in 2013, but that this had risen to 44 per cent in 2014.

Click and collect is just another way in which online shopping is empowering consumers to get precisely the type of retail experience they desire, combining the high street with the internet in a mutually beneficial balance.