COVER FEATURE is enhancing its mobile app to improve the entire pickup experience. “We began rolling out Geofencing technology that alerts our stores when customers are on their way to pick up their orders, enabling quicker fulfillment when they arrive at the store. [In Q3], we announced that we were standing up dedicated fulfillment teams to handle all instore fulfillment orders. All of these enhancements, from the easy to use BOPIS lockers and the new Geofencing technology to the focus on the fulfillment teams, have already driven improvements in customer satisfaction and speed of service.” Despite the triple digit growth digital sales, the physical store will play a critical role in any future home improvement retailing scenario, the experts say. “I believe physical stores [are] more important to our future than ever,” said Home Depot’s Hamad. The “One Home Depot” seamless experience is blending digital and physical worlds to serve the customer. That’s the $11 billion strategy. Some of the tactics include:
Integration of special order price and delivery functionalities for pro customers;
Improving the ease of use of web sites; and
Improving digital store navigation.
Signs of the times: Parking lots of the future will continue to take on more and more responsibilities as distribution evolves.
The evolving ecosystem “Brick and mortar will remain, but they will continue to be more of a spoke in the sales wheel rather than a self-sustaining entity,” said Farnsworth. “In other words, physical locations will be an important part of the total ecosystem. Their role may be filling gaps of the online experience (showrooming, returns, etc.) or servicing customers’ immediate need of product.” Many of the ideas for a store of the future include technology behind the scenes that shares information about inventory, providing
“These investments are critical when it comes to how we’re going to be prepared for the customer of the future,” Hamad said.
Which of the following features are most likely to appear in the home improvement store of the future? (Pick up to three) 55%
Same-day delivery
50%
Digital shelf info
45%
Self checkout
37%
Do-it-for-me services
33%
Mobile POS
23%
Stores within a store
13%
Virtual reality
8%
Drone delivery Robotic help
5% 0 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%
Source: HBSDealer poll
18
MARCH 2021 HARDWARE + BUILDING SUPPLY DEALER
HBSDealer.com