In the U.S., it’s known as curbside pick up or buy online, pick up in store (BOPIS), while in Australia, they prefer to call it click and collect. It’s among the most enduring pandemic accommodations retailers made for edgy consumers, and now it’s a retail force multiplier.
As part of a landmark study involving over 13,000 consumers and 3,100 merchants in six countries — Australia among them — “The 2022 Global Digital Shopping Playbook: Australia Edition,” a PYMNTS and Cybersource collaboration, found that 40% of consumers in that nation purchased additional products during a click-and-collect excursion.
It’s indicative of broader shopping trends in Australia, offering a unique glimpse inside the mind of shoppers in this region and how merchants are responding to new consumer patterns.
In a conversation with PYMNTS’ Karen Webster, Brian McGrory, head of Merchant Sales and Acquiring, Visa AuNZSP, said there are several facets to the trend, all of which are valuable in an inflationary climate.
“Click and collect eliminates the risk and cost of missed deliveries [and] the ability to browse in store … increasing the chances for the retailer of encouraging additional purchases when the shoppers are collecting those items,” McGrory said. “It also allows the shopper to nominate their preferred location and time of pickup,” increasing the likelihood of additional buying.
With delivery services maxed out and often running behind, click and collect is a way of preserving positive consumer sentiment towards retailers while ensuring they get their goods.
Tapping into impulse buys and items that slipped one’s mind while ordering online, the power of click and collect to increase average order values (AOVs) shouldn’t be underestimated.
As “The 2022 Global Digital Shopping Playbook: Australia Edition” states, “There could be one million local shoppers picking up their online orders at brick-and-mortar locations at any given time, underscoring how integral in-store and curbside pickup options have become to the broader Australian retail ecosystem.”
Read more: 2022 Global Digital Shopping Playbook: Australia Edition
Sticky Smartphone Trend
Starting out as a pandemic stopgap, click and collect is part of a larger trend in which smartphones are in-store deal finders, as consumers now routinely browse store aisles, simultaneously searching for price matches and more to boost weakened buying power.
McGrory said, “We’ve seen … studies from companies that show 68% of Australian shoppers read reviews now from multiple sources before making a purchase. That further confers that shoppers are increasingly online before a purchase is made. The smartphone usage, shopper online behaviors, coupled with this increasing dynamic and competitive retail landscape, really, I do think point toward an upward trend of Australians using their mobile phones pre-, during, and of course, post in-store shopping.”
He told Webster that in meetings with retailer clients of all sizes in the region, “They’re thinking digital-first, mobile-first design when it comes to building out customer experiences. They’re just integral in how we live now, how we connect, how we learn, how we shop and of course how we find our way around.”
“I don’t think it’s any surprise that 1 million more Australians used their mobile phones for shopping in 2021 compared to 2020,” he added.
Saying smartphones are now figuring into most retail purchases one way or another, McGrory pointed to study findings that the top three smartphone activities in Australia are building loyalty credit, finding product information and comparing prices.
“With this heavy reliance … on the phone to shop, to research, to look for the best deals, to utilize store credits, to get rewards, to burn those rewards and of course, to pay for goods and services, more and more Australians will continue to use their smartphone,” he said.
See also: Global Digital Shopping Index Shows Australian Merchants Forced to Play Digital Catchup
Merchants need to be positioned for this shift, with systems in place ready to manage the deluge of online orders and control the returns, chargebacks and fraud that surround digital payments.
“I have lots of conversations with retailers about this,” McGrory said. “It’s easy … to want to provide that seamless experience. It’s a lot of heavy lifting though to be able to make that happen in terms of the use of data, the use of technology, the partners that I’m going to use in my business in my partnering model to be able to deliver all of that.”
Payments Seal the Deal
To optimize the Australian consumer’s penchant for click and collect, retailers have to focus on hybrid digital-physical experiences, especially at a time when shoppers are on a mission to save.
Saying Australian consumers are known to be more “considered” in their purchases than those in many other countries, McGrory noted how merchants are catering to those kinds of nuances with enhanced digital experiences that seamlessly bridge online with offline into one flow.
“We’re seeing [largely] what I’d [call] everyday retailers in Australia really enhancing their apps, enhancing their online presence to be able to not only provide all of that information for shoppers to look at, but then being able to send push notifications to those shoppers,” McGrory said.
“The extension of that now is of course loading your payment credentials,” he added, “so that you’ve got the customer there in your app, looking at what’s on special, looking at what offers are there, comparing prices, choosing whether they’re going to have it delivered or not.”
Payment credentials loaded in retail apps “means that they’ve got the end-to-end once again for the shopper to be able to do the research, do the shopping, look for the buy, then being able to make the payment all in that particular retailer’s app,” he said. “I think that’s the path we’re going down for many what I’d [call] merchant categories.”
“The 2022 Global Digital Shopping Playbook: Australia Edition” found that 64% more Australian merchants offered promotions, coupons and deals in 2021 than in 2020, and merchants promising to price-match competitors rose by 10%. Yet many have not.
Asked what’s holding back the holdouts, McGrory said there’s no simple answer; however, deals and discounts differ depending on the type of retailer and merchandise, and a sizeable number of merchants with an everyday low-price market position feel they’ve got it covered.
With “how do I lower costs and service my customers” as the number one question retail clients are asking now, McGrory’s response is: “You can reduce cost out of your business, and you can get the customer [to] come back if you have a seamless digital experience.”
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