‘Ecommerce in Europe needs click & collect to thrive’

About one in seven online consumers in Europe uses the click and collect option whenever it’s available, with the French online buyers to be the most likely to use this delivery method. According to new research, European retailers need click and collect to thrive as it offers customers convenience.

E-commercefacts shared this news today, based on research done by Forrester. The research company surveyed 15,000 consumers from the United Kingdom, France, German, the Netherlands, Italy and Spain. It found out that 26 percent of online consumers in France use the click and collect option every time or at least most of the time whenever it’s available. That’s the highest share among the six European countries researched.

In the United Kingdom, picking up orders in store is also a popular choice, as 34 percent of the respondents said they sometimes use it, while another 16 percent said they use this method every time or most of the time.

Consumer expectations are high
Online shoppers in Europe choose click and collect as a way to avoid delivery costs, for convenience and to save themselves some time. While they appreciate this delivery method, their expectations are still sky high. Almost six out of ten Europeans (59%) expect their online orders to be ready for collection fro a store within the hour. But most European retailers are struggling to support even same-day collection, as E-commercefacts writes.

“For retailers in the UK, the click & collect race focuses on pushing ‘last online order’ cutoff times later and later for guaranteed in-store collection the next day”, Forrester analyst Michelle Beeson explains. “But, as our data shows, customer expectations have already moved on.”