Traditional brick and mortar retail businesses aren’t typically the first thing that comes to mind when you think about innovation. But that doesn’t mean that in-person retail hasn’t seen new and innovative solutions changing the way people shop.

One excellent example is buy online, pick up in store, or “BOPIS.” Sometimes referred to as “click and collect,” this is a solution that combines the best of both physical and digital shopping. Customers can browse inventory via a store’s website or mobile app, select the items they want, and complete the transaction completely digitally. Then, rather than wait for their items to be delivered, they go to the store, where their items are already waiting for them, bought and paid for. 

Smart locker solutions can even streamline the pickup process. Associates load the purchased items into a secure locker that the customer can then access on their own using their smartphone or a unique PIN number at their leisure. 

The Growing Popularity of BOPIS

While BOPIS was originally developed as a way for physical stores to offer quick order turnaround time to compete with increasingly fast delivery services, the trend really caught on as a way to mitigate risks associated with COVID-19. According to one study, the number of people using BOPIS solutions grew from 127.4 million in 2019 to 143.8 million in 2020 - a growth rate of 12.9%. During this boom, shoppers transitioned a huge portion of their spending to BOPIS transactions, spending over $72.46B in 2020, a 106.9% increase over 2019. 

BOPIS Post-Pandemic

Pandemic-related fears drove accelerated adoption of many digitally-enabled solutions, BOPIS among them. As shoppers sought to avoid in-person interactions to slow the spread of COVID-19, many businesses turned to workarounds like contactless delivery and BOPIS to continue service. Now that pandemic restrictions have been lifted in much of the world, many are wondering whether these COVID-era solutions will continue.

Research shows that shoppers chose to use BOPIS beyond COVID-19 concerns. For example, one study from Raydiant found that 19.7% of BOPIS users cited the desire to avoid shipping fees. Other reasons included wanting to avoid interacting with people for non-health related reasons (11.8%) and cutting time spent browsing (9.9%) and waiting in line (8.6%). Rather than safety, shoppers will now turn to BOPIS for added convenience.

Business Benefits of BOPIS

Retailers have plenty of reasons to continue actively offering BOPIS options, too. Providing a  faster,  more convenient, and more flexible option for shoppers is an excellent way to differentiate from the competition. Some of the biggest benefits include:

Same-Day Order Fulfillment

The rise of eCommerce wasn’t just about the convenience of shopping from the comfort of your home - that had been possible through catalogs for decades already. The real key was the speed of service. With many eCommerce businesses offering delivery in as few as two days, the convenience of shopping from home reached a whole new level, and began to seriously compete with traditional retail.

BOPIS flips that script, allowing brick and mortar retailers to take advantage of their physical presence to offer faster order fulfillment than most online services can manage. While same-day delivery is an option, it typically comes with a high fee and is only available for a limited range of products. BOPIS enables same-day pickup free of charge for all in-stock items. 

Reduced Last-Mile Shipping Costs

Getting packages from the fulfillment center to the end recipient may not seem like that big of a challenge, but this “last-mile” can actually be the most difficult and costly portion of the entire delivery process. Many brick and mortar businesses have turned to BOPIS as a way to mitigate last-mile delivery expenses while still providing competitive convenience to their customers. It’s much easier - and cheaper - to deliver items to one central pickup location than to hundreds of individual residential addresses. BOPIS allows retailers to offer their customers a way to receive their order the same day they placed it, without delivery fees or any risk of inconvenient drop-off time windows, lost items, or late deliveries. 

Increased In-Store Foot Traffic

BOPIS also has another advantage over home delivery for retailers - it brings people to the store. This offers the opportunity to re-engage the customer at the pick-up point. Whether they spot in-store signage for a great deal they didn’t know about, are reminded of an additional item they needed and forgot to order, or simply are tempted by an impulse-buy display rack, in-person foot traffic offers ample opportunity to increase sales. 

These secondary purchases are actually more common than one might assume. According to a study by PYMNTS, of the 9 million US shoppers who used BOPIS for a recent order, 47% ended up buying more items while picking up their order, and an additional 17% say they do so some of the time.

Flexible Fulfillment 

For years, traditional brick and mortar stores sought ways to compete with burgeoning online retailers. Now that many physical stores have enhanced their online presence, solutions like BOPIS give them a key advantage over exclusively web-based retailers - flexibility. The addition of a BOPIS option enables shoppers to choose a shopping style that suits their needs and their schedules. They can browse the online store at lunch and pick up their items on the way home.

The use of on-site smart lockers like Exela’s Intelligent Lockers can also widen the pickup window even beyond store hours. Customers can place an order during normal store hours, which is then retrieved and placed in a secure locker by a store associate prior to closing. Then, using a unique PIN number or QR code, the customer can access their items at any time, even after the employees have gone home.

Conclusion

BOPIS may have largely grown from pandemic-related concerns about sanitation and person-to-person contact, but as these concerns dissipate, there are still plenty of reasons for retailers to continue offering this option. Shoppers appreciate convenience and flexibility BOPIS can provide, and the same-day fulfillment helps brick and mortar retailers better compete with their digital counterparts.

Solutions like Exela’s Intelligent Lockers allow for additional convenience and secure handoff of BOPIS orders, streamlining the pickup process while enabling greater flexibility. Learn more about how Intelligent Lockers can benefit your business.

The shift from physical to digital has been accelerating in recent years - then COVID-19 came along and supercharged it. According to McKinsey, the adoption of e-commerce options among consumers shot up in the early months of 2020 to levels it would have taken ten years to reach otherwise.

In today’s competitive landscape, every potential customer touchpoint matters - even post-sale interactions. One critical, yet easily overlooked point of engagement is the presentation of the bill. When done right, it barely even registers, but even a minor complication can have an outsized negative impact on the buyer’s experience - as well as their impression of your company.

While many may not give the bill presentment process much thought, it's a ubiquitous and essential aspect of nearly all transactions. Digitizing bill presentment has had a tremendous impact on how business gets done in the modern day and is one step to creating an improved bill payment process. 

What is ePresentment?

In simple terms, ePresentment services allow customers to access invoices, bills, and other documents via web portals and mobile devices. Not only is this a more convenient, immediate delivery option, it’s also environmentally friendly, as it reduces the need for paper and physical transportation - all three of which are major drivers of modern customer satisfaction.

It might sound simple, but ePresentment services offer some unique benefits to all parties involved in a transaction. Digital delivery allows for greater convenience, automatic payment options, and even improved bidirectional communication between payer and payee. The right ePresentment and electronic document delivery solution can significantly improve the overall process by reducing production costs, increasing return on investment, helping build brand equity, and more.

When built and implemented effectively, ePresentment can be a valuable feature that helps improve retention and lead to higher adoption rates, especially for those struggling with paper-based documents making it ideal as a starting point for digital transformation.

4 Things to Consider When Comparing ePresentment Options

Though there are plenty of service providers, here is what you need to look for while considering an electronic presentment solution for your company:

1. Payment Integration - The first and foremost consideration is ensuring the platform allows and makes it easy for customers to read and pay bills. Accessibility, ease of use, and how quickly users receive confirmation post payment are all key elements when assessing ePresentment options.
2. Interface - Look for how customers view documents. For example, do they have a single sign-on option (SSO), or are they required to log out to another site? Since many people tend to be extra cautious while paying online, you need to ensure that branding remains consistent and secure for users throughout the process.
3. Flexibility - Choose a partner that offers plans that work for your requirement and that can customize their services to best fit your needs. Consider user authentication, hosting options, presentment alternatives, as all these factors directly affect the cost.
4. Archiving - Maintaining easily accessible and well-organized document records can save you from major headaches down the road, not to mention help you ensure compliance with government and industry regulations. Quick access to historical records can also be useful when it comes to providing exceptional customer service. Consider the company’s experience with document management and how much storage space their plans offer.

With decades of refinement, Exela has optimized billing and payment processing by integrating communication channels, providing mixed-media payment processing and dynamic ePresentment. In addition, we help unify disparate data, align workflows, and increase enrollment in electronic payment systems to help you increase efficiency and reduce overall costs.

One of the biggest benefits of ePresentment is how it integrates with other digitally optimized processes within the procurement sphere. Exela’s ePresentment solution is a critical component of our comprehensive Procure to Pay (P2P) solution, which is designed to streamline and improve every step of the process from procurement, all the way to payment, for industries including healthcare, manufacturing, and retail.

Learn more about how Exela’s Billing and Presentment solutions can help your business provide a more convenient experience for your customers.

Everyone knows the pain and suffering of waiting on hold for a customer service representative after following a winding, push-button menu of too many options that simply lead to another tier of options. What if your customer service system could anticipate needs and anticipate potential issues to get your customer to the right place faster? In order to do so, the customer experience (CX) needs to be at the forefront of your digital business decisions – this includes combining technology with the people who define your company for the best balance going forward.

A newly designed app might seem like the perfect solution at first, as it encourages mobility and ease of use. However, that app won’t mean much if your back-office processes aren’t up to speed and ready to tackle a new approach to the CX as well. All of your data needs to be accessible to create a big picture view, from the front end to the back office. Adding technology to the process is a great step, but the infrastructure behind it needs to be there – people are your biggest asset. Exela’s primary goal is to empower your workforce using technology, not replace your workforce with technology. After all, people still do many things better than machines, such as making value judgements, synthesizing knowledge over time to make decisions, or provide a level of stellar service to boost continued customer loyalty. Machines are great helpers in the process, and once you apply AI to the more basic processes, it frees up your workforce to focus on tasks only they can perform.

Following are four quick tips from Exela on how to integrate tech with your workforce to create the best in CX.

    1. Use AI and bots to help with the smaller issues.

Easy and quick tasks, like changes in shipping address, updating customer contact info, or providing suggestions to your customers based on previous purchases, can be outsourced to chat bots or virtual assistants such as Exela’s iCRM, an intelligent virtual agent to help automate customer service. Let AI take those smaller jobs off your plate and free up time for more complex interactions and duties.

    2. Make sure all your departments are communicating with each other.

This might sound like common sense, but it can be hard to do, especially in larger companies where different departments may reside in different physical locations and time zones. Get everyone on the same page and on board with your digital transformation.

    3. Realize that to unify tech and workforce, it might require a big cultural shift.

Individual, siloed departments are often the norm and can create internal barriers. Implementing effective and high-quality CX depends on an integrated approach that involves everyone. If you use an end-to-end approach with your customers, you should also do so when deploying new technology platforms within your organization. Help shift company culture to embrace your new layer of technology.

    4. Transform the CX by making it personal, customized, and easy to use.

Choosing a provider for your new CX initiative is just as important as implementation! Exela’s platforms and solutions transform the CX by making it personal, customized, and easy to use. This sets us apart, as we can either work with your existing legacy software or provide you with a new system. While you’re thinking about how to optimize customer experience, Exela is working to drive your digital transformation to achieve the results you’re looking for.

Now that you’re in the know, you can start thinking about the best ways to take your CX to the next level by adding an efficient technology platform to your roster or integrating one with your legacy systems. While most businesses are trying to figure out just how to optimize their customer experience, you’re on the road to turning thoughts into actions, and actions into an increase in sales and retention, all while empowering your workforce to work more seamlessly within the digital economy.

In the midst of a strong economy, U.S. retailers have announced more than 8,200 store closings this year, which is well above 2017’s record-shattering 6,700 and only a fraction of the 12,000 that experts forecast will close before the end of 2019.^[1] Store closings affect not only the retailers themselves. Store closings give rise to layoffs. Layoffs give rise to unemployment. Unemployment gives rise to budget-tightening. Budget-tightening inevitably has a damning effect on consumer shopping habits. If this is the situation in a strong economy, it’s not unreasonable to fear what’s ahead for the retail industry if the U.S. were to slip into recession-mode, as some economists fear it might sometime in the next 12 months.

If you can’t beat ‘em…

If the main reason for the so-called “retail apocalypse” is, as many analysts assert, that Americans are shunning brick-and-mortar shopping for the convenience, efficiency, and flexibility of online shopping,^[2] then it may be that the solution is to accept the problem and work within its confines. What that means is finding ways to optimize the customer experience vis a vis brick-and-mortar shopping. In fact, there’s been some movement toward this, with some retailers, including Macy’s and Restoration Hardware actually increasing their investment in their brick-and-mortar assets.^[3] Some are putting their money into spiffing-up their spaces, but others are going a step further, embracing “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em,” by using their brick-and-mortar stores to facilitate their online business.

Intelligent Lockers bridge the gap between online and brick-and-mortar

Among the most promising ways retailers are using tech to the advantage of their brick-and-mortar locations is by installing automated locker systems that offer the best of both online and brick-and-mortar shopping. These systems consist of banks of individual “smart” lockers” (which is to say, electronically enabled and internet-connected) of varying sizes (to accommodate varying sizes of merchandise). These have many uses in business but have a specific and significant value in retail: to bridge the gap between online and brick-and-mortar shopping to allow customers the greatest flexibility with regard to designing their own shopping experience. Here are just a few ways that works:

Buy-online, pick-up in-store (BOPIS)

One-day delivery was certainly a nice idea when Amazon introduced it. However, in practice, it’s rare for something you order online to actually arrive at your door the next day. BOPIS permits customers to shop online to their heart’s desire and then pick up their haul as quickly as immediately at the retailer’s local locker hub, without having to interface with a store employee.

Not all consumers want to pick up their packages personally, but many do for reasons that include the avoidance of “porch piracy” (theft of packages left “at the front porch” of their home, which is becoming an increasing risk in the online shopping economy), enhancing privacy (does the UPS guy really need to know you bought that thing from that vendor?), and, of course, the primal desire for instantaneous gratification (you ordered it now, you want it now; you just don’t want to have to deal with snarky employees, lines at the register, and whatever else annoys you about in-store shopping.

Buy online, return in-store

You bought a great shirt online, and it is great, but it turns out you aren’t keeping the slacks you bought it to go with. Instead of repacking the shirt, printing a label, and depositing it at a courier, you can simply return it at the brick-and-mortar’s locker hub, without spending a moment online at customer service.

Buy online, exchange in-store

Same shirt, different problem: you love the shirt, but it pulls at the shoulders. You don’t want to return it; you just want to size-up. With smart parcel lockers, all you have to do is to key in the size you desire into your smartphone or computer, et voila, it’s waiting for you in a locker assigned to you for the transaction.

What’s good for the customer here is also good for the retailer. In addition, intelligent lockers in the retail context enable more business to be transacted without additional employees. Down the line, it can mean fewer customer-facing employees altogether. It can also mean less inventory on the shopping floor, which will reduce theft and damage to merchandise. Click here for more information on Exela Intelligent Lockers and how they can optimize your retail business. Want it in printable format? Click here .