Click and collect dominates online delivery for Halfords

Monday, June 6, 2016 - 13:58 by David Aiken

Last year 12 per cent of all sales made by veteran retailer, Halfords, were carried out via safe shopping online, meaning that its bricks and mortar stores still account for the vast majority of its revenues.

However, the firm also revealed that while home delivery is an option available for most orders, 90 per cent of customers who purchased products online chose to pick them up in-store rather than get them sent direct to their doors, according to Internet Retailing.

The rise of click and collect as a delivery option has been rapid, with many consumers preferring it to home delivery because it allows them to pick up the goods on the same day as they place the order, rather than waiting longer for a package to arrive by post.

By getting more people who love safe shopping online to visit its stores to collect items, Halfords also has the opportunity to showcase more products and also deliver a better degree of customer service and support than might otherwise be available.

While e-commerce activity continues to grow at a rapid rate, Halfords actually saw a very minor 1.4 per cent rise in online sales during the past 12 months. But because the company is doing such a good job of integrating its in-store and online experiences, this is unlikely to be seen as a problem.

In the coming year, the retailer is looking to invest more in gaining insights into customer behaviour, analysing data to see how shoppers behave and acting to optimise the marriage between the web and the high street in a more streamlined manner.

Ultimately, it is hoping to get a unified view of how customers act, from their online habits to their in-store decisions, both at its automotive and bike outlets and within the context of its auto centres.