Businesses must constantly change to keep up with current trends and customer preferences. Buy online, pick-up in-store, or BOPIS, is a trend that was catalyzed by COVID-19 and is here to stay. Customers like the ease of ordering online combined with the speed of picking up their order on the same day at the store.
Why Choose BOPIS?
Customers like BOPIS for many reasons. Firstly, it eliminates shipping costs compared to traditional online ordering. While shipping online orders can be fast, it is almost always prohibitively expensive to get same-day shipping. BOPIS lets the customer pick up their order on the same day, even though they placed the order online. This process streamlines the customer experience by allowing them to skip navigating a brick-and-mortar store and waiting in lines.
Many customers would rather buy from a local store rather than a large online retailer. However, it is near impossible for independent stores to compete with online giant’s shipping prices and overall prices. BOPIS gives these brick-and-mortar retail stores a new way to compete with online retailers. By combining the online and in-store experiences, BOPIS gives customers a new way to shop full of many advantages.
BOPIS Works Best With Outdoors Smart Lockers
Outdoor smart lockers provide the most frictionless option for BOPIS orders. Curbside pick-up and indoor pick-up create logistical hassles for staff and annoying lines for customers. Today’s fast-paced customers don’t want to wait in lines, especially if they are using BOPIS services. Smart lockers eliminate pick-up wait times for the customer, as well as offering many other perks.
Outdoor smart lockers further enhance the BOPIS experience by allowing customers to pick up packages 24/7. Perhaps a customer works late into the evening and isn’t able to get to the store until after it closes. By choosing BOPIS, this customer can pick up their order on their timeline rather than working around the store’s hours.
Outdoor smart lockers are a seamless way of adapting to BOPIS packages and orders. The flexibility, safety, and convenience for both the customers and staff of outdoor smart lockers give them a clear advantage over curbside or in-store pick-up.
What is an Outdoor Smart Locker?
An outdoor smart locker is a tool to facilitate the BOPIS process. The locker has many different sized units, each of which can hold a single order. Staff place orders into the appropriately sized unit and leave them for customers to pick up at their convenience. Since these lockers are outside, they offer customers 24/7 pick-up options.
But how are these outdoor lockers smart? By integrating enterprise-class software into the BOPIS experience, Smiota’s smart lockers can reduce the amount of time and energy staff must spend on sorting BOPIS orders. Smiota’s mailroom software helps sort and register packages. This keeps the entire BOPIS process organized and traceable. This software also automatically notifies customers when their package has been deposited in the smart locker. When customers come to pick up their package from the smart locker, they can unlock the locker door with their phones. This feature creates truly contactless pickup.
Outdoor Smart Lockers Streamline Staff Efficiency
Staff time is valuable. Since it is simple and easy to deposit packages and orders into an outdoor smart locker, staff members save time with these lockers compared to in-store pick-up. With a fully integrated technology stack, customers, retailers, and couriers can easily adapt to working with smart lockers. Apps do all the interface with a BOPIS customer, so staff members have more time to fulfill other tasks. Outdoor lockers have the added bonus of keeping both staff and customers healthy by providing contactless pick-up.
Outdoors Smart Lockers Are Weatherized for Any Climate
No customer wants to arrive at an outdoor smart locker only to find their package is wet. Smiota’s outdoor smart lockers have extra weather stripping that makes the units waterproof. This weather stripping ensures that packages will remain completely dry during even the most intense rain or snow events.
Modular Units Allow for Customization
Every business or residence has its own unique size needs for packages and orders. An art store needs large locker units to fit canvases and cardstock. A college needs a diverse variety of locker unit dimensions because students order all sorts of odd-shaped items. A grocery store needs refrigerated as well as frozen units for fresh produce and frozen foods. With several different add-ons available, Smiota’s outdoor smart lockers provide the appropriate dimensions for any BOPIS application.
Refrigeration and Freezing Capabilities
With special refrigerated and frozen units, Smiota’s outdoor smart lockers make BOPIS possible for businesses with temperature-sensitive products. This means that restaurants and grocery stores can now use outdoor smart lockers. The outdoor smart locker option reduces the cost to customers compared to food delivery. They also reduce wait times for pick-up compared to picking up orders inside a store.
Frozen lockers can help residents of apartment buildings immensely. Some people get medications delivered that must be kept frozen at all times. These residents will have peace of mind knowing that their crucial medication is safely waiting for them in a frozen locker rather than vulnerable on a hot doorstep.
Outdoor Smart Lockers Are the BOPIS of the Future
Outdoor Smart Lockers provide the easiest way for retailers to adapt to BOPIS shopping. By freeing up staff time These lockers also give customers the quick, seamless shopping experience they are looking for. With outdoor smart lockers for residential, university, retail, and corporate applications, Smiota has a solution for any BOPIS need.
