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Skipping Shipping
More retailers are allowing consumers to shop online and pick up their orders in store.
Oct 10, 2011 Shopping Centers Today Joel Groover
When retailers first had the idea to let shoppers order items online and pick them up at the store, doomed startups such as Webvan and Pets.com were spending venture capitalists’ money like it was...well, 1999. Some experts even predicted that online shopping would transform stores into glorified pickup centers served by loading docks and drive-through windows. Rather than waste time pushing a shopping cart up and down the aisles of a cavernous big-box store, people would order online, then drive to the store to have carhops lug the goods into the car.
Many retailers now use pickup programs to drive sales in creative ways that fit their specific customers’ needs. “Bed Bath & Beyond has a huge back-to-college business,” said Spence Mehl, senior vice president of RCS Real Estate Advisors, a New York City–based retail real estate advisory firm. “You order something online or go into the store and order it and then pick it up when you get to school. It has been tremendous for them.”