Buy Online, Pick up In Store (BOPIS) trend is Increasing among the Shoppers, have you provided this Order Fulfillment to your Customers?

Shoppers are now looking for multiple fulfillment options that are convenient to their needs. Buy Online Pick up In Store (BOPIS) option is a fast-growing, there are many reasons for this trend, avoiding the shipping fee is the main factor. They can search precisely online, place the order and then pick it up from the nearby store. BOPIS is equally beneficial for both retailers and shoppers. Shoppers will think of saving for the delivery cost, and once they are in store to pick up the order, they are most likely to purchase some additional items, resulting in an increased order value for the retailers. Some other reasons why shoppers want to pick up in the store are:

• The store is nearby and it is easy to pick the order.
• Want purchased item on the same day.
• Wanted to be sure that the item is in the store before going.

In order to add BOPIS features to their e-commerce sites, retailers need to associate physical stores to the websites, so that shoppers can pick up items from there. This creates complexity in the inventory management process, like creating stores and assigning inventory to each one; and managing it all at the runtime. Threshold limits need to be tied with pickup orders as well. Also, there should be an established communication process through which shoppers can be notified at what time or after a particular amount of time they can collect their merchandise. Some email notification or messaging is required to keep shoppers updated on their order status.

Salesforce Commerce Cloud supports BOPIS features in both code foundations, the SFRA (Storefront Reference Architecture) and the foundation architecture. It allows creating multiple stores for a single site and inventory can be assigned to all stores separately. So that the data remains consistent across all stores and the shopper does not end up with out of stock messages after placing the order for in-store pickup. Moreover, it also allows product level configuration for in-store pickup. Businesses can distribute inventory between in-store pickup and store shopping so that they do not end up with low inventory for the shoppers purchasing from the store.

In-store pickup helps retailers have a competitive advantage over those not offering this feature. Providing in-store pickup as the shipment method gives more flexibility to the customer experience.

Salesforce Commerce Cloud implements BOPIS features through a combination of configurations in the Business Manager and making use of their API capabilities. By modifying product quick views and detail pages, it makes it easier for consumers to find whether the item is available for in-store pickup or not even before adding it to the cart. Retailers can have additional configurations for all individual stores based on distance range and geolocation data.