Following tests that began in November 2015, Tesco’s Same-Day Click & Collect service is available in 261 Tesco stores and 36 off-site locations. Online orders before 1pm can be collected by 4pm for £2 Monday to Thursday, and £3 on Fridays and Saturdays, for orders of £40.
With other mults at various stages of similar test-mode, this is all pointing to the emergence of Time as a key Amazonian differentiator in serving shoppers...
In other words, serious online ordering and fulfilment is about matching Amazon, at least, given that having a competitive edge is supposed to means being ‘better-than’..
...which means:
- 100% availability, 24/7
- 1-Click ordering
- Returns even easier
- Delivery and Click & Collect options
- Zero-defect service
- Competitive charges
...leaving Time as the only variable (Cutting delivery/collect charges on services that already lose money becomes a race to the bottom)
Where is this heading?
As soon as retailers fully integrate online ordering and Click & Collect with their total offering, attempting to neutralise/eliminate price differentiation, then ways of optimising the time variable will be top of the agenda.
This means transferring some of the pressure back up the pipeline…
…resulting in smaller, more frequent, zero-defect deliveries that result in 100% ‘on shelf’ availability, or else…
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