How John Lewis presents its click and collect service

As reported in our post discussing what we’ve learnt about click and collect since Christmas 2014, click and collect at John Lewis overtook home delivery for the first time at the end of last year.

56% of John Lewis’s online customers chose to collect their goods from stores, rather than have them delivered to home addresses. Overall, click and collect orders grew by 47% compared to the same time last year. John Lewis online orders rose by 21.6% to £1.4bn.

Expectations for the success of click and collect were huge last Christmas, although final figures didn’t quite match the giddy predictions of 95% of online shoppers will using click and collect, the final figure of 47% of the total of online UK shoppers using the service reflects an ever-growing trend for this convenient method of fulfilment.

David Moth discussed how retailers promoted click and collect over the Christmas period and revealed that some retailers were failing to adequately prepare for the rush.

Tesco suffered a fulfilment disaster and had to display a banner notifying customers that due to “unprecedented demand” it was currently unable to provide next day click and collect deliveries.

(Apologies for the small text there.)

M&S was also forced to withdraw its next day store delivery service.

As for the onsite messaging of click and collect, many online retailers don’t do enough on their sites to promote it.

Although Argos is clear about its delivery options on the product page, there is no mention of them on the homepage. This is the same with other retailers such as Homebase or Waterstones.

For any retailers wishing to offer click and collect as a valuable component of its multichannel customer service mix, John Lewis offers a masterclass in how to present the service.

On each product page, every delivery option is clearly stated. The fact that it’s free is mentioned first and highlighted in bold, the locations you can collect items from are mentioned, as well as the time when your goods are available.

In the shopping basket, these options remain clear…

Then when you’re through to checkout, click and collect is the first option you’re presented with. Also Collect+ is available if there are no John Lewis or Waitrose stores near you.

Every single one of John Lewis’s delivery options is made abundantly clear right from the product page, and offered consistently right through to checkout.

The only improvement that I would suggest is that although the homepage does state the availability of click and collect, the message is below the fold.