Click&Collect in International Comparison

The coronavirus pandemic has made flexibility more important than ever for retailers. Both online and stationary retailers had to adapt and overthink their business models and even the last skeptics among traditional brick-and-mortar retailers had to embrace a phenomenon called multi- or cross-channel marketing. One of the magic retail words 2020 is “click&collect”. Choose online – pick up at a local store. At least in Germany, click&collect is a way for brick-and-mortar retailers to survive the current lockdown. Many had to build up an online presence out of thin air within weeks or even days in order to be able to present their products to customers willing to order by phone or online and pick up their orders at their familiar store. In eCommerce, click&collect is not new – it has been a special “delivery” service option for several years. By ordering via click&collect, eCommerce customers save money on shipping costs and can instantly return the product without having to pack a parcel. Online retailers on the other hand save money and time in logistics as well. Some online stores that do not have a physical counterpart collaborate with partnering pick-up stores in order to be able to offer click&collect options to their customers. But how widespread is click&collect among online retailers? An ecommerceDB.com analysis of online stores across Europe has the answer:

Russia is the country in the analysis1 in which click&collect is used most frequently by online stores: 65% of the top online stores by net sales in 2019 in Russia offered click&collect as a delivery option. Lithuania and Poland are close behind: 63% of the top online stores each in both countries used click&collect systems in 2019. In Ireland and the UK, click&collect is also common among most top stores, with more than half of the top stores offering the service: 61% in Ireland and 51% in the UK. All other countries in the comparison show percentages below 50%. The country with the lowest percentage is Turkey: Only 20% of Turkey’s top online stores offered click&collect in 2019. It remains to be seen whether the surge in click&collect in stationary retail also has an effect on the popularity of click&collect in eCommerce. Now that consumers get used to click&collect in stationary retail, they are likely to expect more click&collect options also in eCommerce.

1: The basis of the analysis are the top stores by net sales in the respective country in 2019. Depending on the country, percentages refer to either the top 100, the top 250, or the top 500 stores.

You are interested in more details about click&collect and other shipping options of online stores in different countries? Check out the newly released ecommerceDB Country Reports and get extensive information on different eCommerce markets, including store analyses, consumer insights and market trends.