With social distancing being the norm during the pandemic, retailers have come up with an innovative solution Curbside Pickup to offer their customers a safer option to collect their orders. It has seen an increase in popularity over the last few months as merchants have grappled with social distancing measures.

Curbside Pickup is an extension of BOPIS (Buy Online Pickup in Store) that allows a shopper to place the order online and collect it at the curb near to the store or any convenient location nearby.

This solution has been a path of least resistance and an easy way for retailers and consumers to conduct business without being exposed to the risks associated with COVID.  It also helps retailers to keep their business continuity even during uncertain times.

 

 

Research Showing Curbside’s Appeal:

Earlier, curbside was among a number of fulfilment options, but today it’s become an important way for some retailers to leverage their physical space as people feel uncomfortable stepping foot in public.

 Source: Digital360Commerce

 Connect to the Power of Salesforce:

Getting online quickly is an important first step, but just setting up a digital storefront isn’t enough for a business to survive in the future. Retailers need the speed, flexibility, scalability, and connection to CRM and marketing to grow in this digital-first economy while providing a seamless digital experience.

With so many businesses shifting towards online ordering and curbside pickup as the COVID-19 pandemic continues, Salesforce has uncovered a new line of pre-built website packages aimed at helping businesses speed up the process. By using site templates that can be filled in with product descriptions and prices, companies can quicken their transitions to online sales and curbside pickups compared to starting such efforts from scratch.

The Salesforce Commerce Cloud products include everything needed to get the sites going, from creation using pre-built storefront templates to site deployment, web hosting, and assistance from Salesforce through managed services as part of the packages. The sites are built up using a combination of no-code clicking to select a wide range of pre-configured options or manual coding by developers to add custom coding as desired.

SFCC Capabilities:

  • Preference to enable or disable curbside pickup option on the online store.
  • Flags to enable/disable curbside pickup at store level.
  • Flag to enable/disable curbside pickup at a product level.
  • Configuring new shipping methods for Curbside Pickup.
  • Configuring store details and displaying curbside pickup notes for stores across the site.
  • Displaying the curbside pickup option for the eligible products on the site.
  • Inventory check when a customer adds a product to cart for curbside pickup.
  • Letting customer select the preferred time slot to collect the order.
  • Integration with external systems to display the store location on maps.
  • Updating the order details on SFCC to reflect curbside pickup delivery option.
  • Updating email template with appropriate curbside pickup details for order confirmation, status notifications and order ready acknowledgements.

 How Does Curbside Pickup Work?

  1. The customer places an order through your online store as well as where and when they’d like to pick it up.
  2. They also have the option to pay online in advance, with their chosen payment method.
  3. Order details are then sent to the store owner to deliver the order on accepted time.
  4. Customer can always check their order status. When the order is ready to get delivered, the store owner can acknowledge the customer that the order is ready to collect. Optionally, a contact number can be shared with the customer to have direct contact with the store associate.
  5. Customer arrives at the location at the selected time slot to collect the order. Store associates can put the order directly in the car ensuring minimum contact with customers.

 

 

Aspire’s Offerings:

Our Salesforce quick-start solution for curbside pickup provides you with the ability to connect your store inventory to the online shopping experience, route pickup orders to the store location selected, and enable fulfilment by store associates that triggers payment capture.

Our Curbside solution allows you to:

  • Manage all the operations around fulfilment of CSPU.
  • Setup CSPU stores and enable the flow of data from OMS and vice versa and get things ready for shoppers to promote Curbside Pickup experience on SFCC.
  • Enable store personnel to manage their own store level setup & configurations of CSPU setup across the organization.
  • Manage the orders blocked at the curbside in near real-time.
  • Quickly host CSPU using the Commerce Infinity Accelerator which brings the integration capabilities to the table.

Conclusion:

It’s pretty clear that retail will never be exactly the same as it was before the pandemic forcing merchants to rethink their strategy in order to continue the business. Customers appreciate the ability to shop with you wherever they are without needing to wait for (or pay for!) shipping; curbside pickup is an ideal mix between convenience and speed that slots nicely into the busy schedules of your customers going forward. As we continue to live through these uncertain times and with the threat of a second wave of coronavirus, it’s not too late to set up curbside pickup (if you haven’t already) for your business.

Our solution helps businesses provide a safe, convenient fulfilment that can be scaled largely using your existing retail staff. Apart from that it also creates a better customer experience and builds stronger customer relationships, which will be increasingly important to stay competitive in the long run!

Get in touch with us today!

Recommended Blogs

1.Embrace the future of retail with Curbside Pickup

2.Bringing the shopper back to the physical store: 5 ways to minimize risk for your consumers

 

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