In the last two years we have seen the volume of online shopping grow by more than 100%. An increase of this magnitude in online orders has created both opportunities and difficulties in abundance. Among the challenges retailers selling their goods online are facing are parcel management and fulfillment.
The sheer volume of online orders has led to a logistical nightmare with fulfillment centers overwhelmed to the extent that costly mistakes are made on a regular basis. By implementing BOPIS lockers in Vancouver many local companies have successfully mitigated if not entirely eliminated this problem. This solution is by far the most efficient in this regard due to the way it approaches the problem.
Smart Retail Locker Solutions are Uniquely Suitable for Last Mile Delivery
Instead of throwing more resources into traditional parcel management and delivery methods, BOPIS lockers in Vancouver take a shortcut instead. Getting more personnel to move more parcels towards people’s homes still leads to bottlenecks and expensive errors. Establishing a Buy Online and Pickup In-Store option cuts away at the supply chain, removing links and entire segments.
This way the traditional supply chain gets minimized to its bare minimum, removing the need to deal with home delivery at all. This eliminates managing and tracking shipments, confirming delivery of parcels, managing customer calls and concerns.
Instead of this clunky and cumbersome process, the items shoppers purchased online are simply deposited in a set of BOPIS lockers. Which is where they will be picked up personally by the buyers.
Even if the pickup location is not adjacent to the retail store or warehouse, and carrier services need to be procured, it’s still less costly. After all, having a single destination with multiple lockers is much better than hundreds of drop off points scattered across a large metropolitan area.
To put all ducks in a row so to speak, and so that we don’t miss anything, here are the advantages of this fulfillment method.
Benefits from Using BOPIS Lockers for Parcel Management
1. Cutting delivery costs
2. Reducing customer wait times
3. Eliminating the risk of parcel theft
4. Simplifying the return process
5. Boosting in-store sales by encouraging walk-ins
We already discussed the first three benefits of implementing BOPIS lockers in Vancouver online retail, now let’s take a look at the remaining two.
When the point of pickup is a locker, an unhappy buyer does not need to contact customer support, receive a shipping label and send the purchase back. This long, tedious and expensive process is a thing of the past with advanced smart retail locker solutions. In this new set of circumstances, the buyer can examine the purchase, decide they don’t like it and put it right back into the locker.
It really is as simple as that. And it leads us to the next point, which is a boost in retail walk-ins. In case of a return, the buyer is in fact encouraged to walk into the store and look for alternative items. Needless to say this is not an option in the traditional home delivery scenario.
If you need to know more about how smart lockers can improve your parcel management and fulfillment, get in touch with us directly.
