TECH Q & A
Mobile Pickup Accelerates Amid Ongoing Pandemic Retailers can greatly streamline omnichannel ordering and pickup processes by leveraging mobile technology. Rakuten Ready’s platform connects brick-and-mortar stores and restaurants for frictionless mobile commerce. Jaron Waldman, co-founder and CEO of Rakuten Ready, which was previously known as Curbside and acquired by Rakuten in 2018, recently discussed how COVID-19 is heightening existing consumer demand for the convenience of mobile ordering and pickup. How has the COVID-19 pandemic changed or accelerated existing mobile order/pickup trends? COVID-19 has dramatically transformed the retail and restaurant industries. New services that may have initially been put in place as a safety precaution - such as curbside pickup — are growing in demand as customers realize the additional benefits, such as speed and convenience. Mobile ordering for pickup was already growing, but COVID-19 certainly catapulted that growth trajectory. Rakuten Intelligence cites a 200% growth rate of orders for pickup between February and September 2020. This demand puts accelerated pressure on merchants to build infrastructure to deliver truly seamless curbside or in-store pickup experiences. Consumers are more concerned than ever about the amount of time they spend in stores, so speed of the pickup process is important, and customers expect orders to be ready exactly when they arrive on site. Having seamless operations established enables contactless fulfillment, which means faster and safer experiences for customers and employees. We predict that these expectations will continue even after COVID-19, as people will now expect precautions and time efficiencies to stay in place. How does the ability to predict customer arrival time improve the mobile pickup experience for both retailers and customers? Knowing when a customer is on their way allows store employees to prioritize orders accordingly. This ensures that customers
spend less time waiting, and, in the case of grocery or restaurant orders, don’t have to worry about their food sitting out and getting cold. One great example is Kroger. When COVID-19 came along, Kroger’s digital-first approaches positioned it well to quickly react by further expanding curbside and in-store pickup services, as well as contactless payment solutions like Kroger Pay. The retailer also piloted pickup-only locations, starting in Cincinnati. By knowing exactly when customers will arrive, Kroger can pick and pack, destage and have bags from various temperature locations ready to run out. What type of data can retailers obtain from real-time analytics, and how can they leverage it for improved operations? Merchants can get large and small insights needed to constantly optimize pickup operations. For example, one can see the average volume and wait time for pickup orders across all of their sites nationwide. But they can also drill into one location to try to determine why their wait times are so high, by looking at the peak days/times visa-vis staff resourcing, which can help drive conversations with operators in a much more conducive manner. Knowledge around how things are operating, who’s killing it and who needs support can help brands plan, optimize and grow their pickup business (which we all know also helps improve profit margins). What needs to happen on the back end for a seamless front-end mobile ordering and pickup experience?
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First, merchants need to have an easy-to-use platform for customers to order from, whether that is an app or a website. Then it is vital to heavily promote your digital storefront and tell customers of the benefits as to why to use it. Adding an incentive to your first order to drive trial is common. Next, operators need to have a detailed plan for how employees will fulfill these orders. This plan should include how and when to prepare or pick the order, monitoring of customer arrivals and destaging of orders so it’s ready to run out the second the customer arrives to safely handoff orders to customers. How can Rakuten Ready help retailers optimize their front-end and back-end seamless mobile order/ pickup programs? Rakuten Ready’s Arrive solution suite provides the fundamental tools to merchants to improve operations around their pickup orders. Integrating into merchant online ordering systems, Arrive picks up where online ordering ends by letting staff members manage all pickup orders in one simple place. The solution tells store employees exactly when customers will arrive, allowing them to have orders timed perfectly to their arrival. And should employees need to ask their customers questions or want to keep them abreast of their order progress, Arrive comes with two-way communications so they can reach out whenever needed. NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020
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