How to boost ecommerce conversion with alternative delivery options

24% of ecommerce shoppers are annoyed that home delivery is still the default option for most retailers when it comes to checkout with their online shopping. 26% are surprised that home delivery is the only option for their favourite retailers. (Find out more with our free downloadable Pulse data on consumer preferences). In the millennial segment, those who prefer home delivery are in the minority, with 56% saying they’d prefer alternatives like delivery to stores, lockers, pickup locations or workplaces.

That’s not so surprising. Home delivery has a number of key drawbacks and when the experience goes wrong, it can go catastrophically wrong. For example, missing the delivery can mean a trek round the neighbours to discover where the parcel has ended up, or worse, parcels getting soggy on the front step.

By contrast, click & collect offers a much more reliable and robust way to receive parcels. Shoppers can choose when they pick them up and rest easy knowing that they’re securely stored.

The upshot is that retailers looking to improve conversion during their checkout procedures should look at how their delivery options are positioned, because memories of bad home delivery experience could be putting off swathes of customers who would otherwise be purchasing.

Certainly this doesn’t mean abandoning home delivery, but retailers could definitely do more to call out the benefits of their click and collect or alternative delivery propositions.

It makes financial sense for them too, especially if they can drive customers to stores to collect their ecommerce purchases. The incremental revenue generated by additional in-store purchases can be maximised if retailers are using the right technology platforms to understand a customer’s delivery habits and shopping history. Effectively, in-store collections can improve conversion on both the ecommerce site and at the store level.

One of the best ways to maximise the value of click and collect is to harness technology to enable an ‘instant’, same-day or next day click and collect offering. This uses stock from the store itself to fulfil ecommerce orders. By doing this, retailers can offer previously impossible levels of speed. For example, Next is now offering 1 hour click and collect for its stores, allowing it to capture demand for rapid, convenient purchases.

We know that delivery speed is second only to free delivery in terms of motivation to complete a purchase. That’s why highlighting the rapid delivery enabled by instant click and collect boosts ecommerce conversion.