Click and Collect Overview

This topic shows you how to make the best of the IRP’s powerful Click & Collect feature.

Click & Collect has become an extremely popular choice used by consumers in many different retail sectors. If you enable the Click & Collect feature in the IRP, you give your customers the opportunity to pick up their items at a collection location rather than having them delivered to their home. This has the potential to improve your sales with customers who want items quickly and conveniently. It is also free as they do not have to pay for delivery. (Note that there is currently no way to charge for Click & Collect using the IRP.)

The IRP Click & Collect feature could also boost sales by increasing the numbers of customers who come through your shop door — if the collection location is one of your shops, when the customer comes to pick up the products that they have ordered, they will be in your shop and possibly buy more items. They might simply browse and note items to purchase at a later date.

This topic covers the following areas:

• The Benefits of Click & Collect
• Managing Click & Collect Using IRP Admin
• Click & Collect From the Customer’s Viewpoint
• Advertising Click & Collect to Your Customers
• Click & Collect Resources on the Web

For you as the online retailer, using the Click & Collect feature shows your customers that you are putting them first. You are interested in giving them options, saving them money and time. You are making things more convenient for them. This fact alone could cause your customers to become strong advocates of your business.

The advantages for your customers are many:

• It’s free.
• The customer doesn’t need to use a credit card online unless they want to prepay.
• The customer doesn’t have to worry about not being at home when their purchases are delivered. Instead, they pick up their items largely at a time that suits them.
• The customer knows that the products they are looking at are in stock.
• The customer can potentially see a product before they complete a sale.
• It’s very convenient — for customers who live within travelling distance of the collection location.
• It’s faster when ordering as the customer doesn’t have to work through all the payment and delivery aspects of the checkout process.

Managing the IRP Click & Collect feature involves the following steps:

1. Before even thinking about Click & Collect, it is essential that you have correctly set up your Stock Control in IRP Admin.
2. Define stock locations as Click & Collect locations and configure any product exclusions associated with stock locations. Ensure that you define any specific times when Click & Collect locations are closed.
3. Make sure that models are in stock and that you have set minimum stock levels correctly.
4. Ensure that your Click & Collect System Emails are correctly configured.
5. Create custom content pages to explain your Click & Collect terms and conditions.
6. Enable the master Click & Collect Application Setting and optionally configure other settings.
7. After setting up the basics, try out the Click & Collect feature on your customers and manage orders using the IRP Orders Admin section.
8. If you use the IRP EPOS, complete the sale using the straightforward Click & Collect functionality when the customer comes to pick up their purchases.

Each of these steps is described in more detail in the sections following.

1. Stock Control

You need to make sure that that your stock is correctly configured in your IRP system. This includes having your stock locations and suppliers set up but also performing regular stock takes at each of your locations. This is essential for determining where and when items are available. For more details, refer to the Stock Control help topic in the Knowledge Base.

Note that it is possible to allow Click & Collect on out-of-stock items, assuming that the ‘Enable Purchase Of Out Of Stock Items’ Application Setting is enabled.

2. Stock Locations and Product Restrictions

You define stock locations as Click & Collect locations using the Stock Control > Locations section in the IRP Admin left navigation menu. The IRP Stock Locations help topic explains how to do this in detail. In brief, you need to:

1. Check the box for Is Click & Collect Location for each location.
2. Define the location name and general opening times (you use the Closures tab to define any specific closure times). You can also auto-generate latitude and longitude values based on the address of the stock location. This lets your customers find the location easily.
3. Define any categories, brands or models that are excluded from the Click & Collect feature.

Stock Location Closures

You need to let your customers know if some days their chosen collection location will be closed, or if the location will be open for pick ups only between certain times and so forth. You do this using the Closures tab.

You use the tab to define the start and end times of the closure. If the closure is for an entire working day, set the times to the corresponding opening and closing times of the selected stock location (or earliest opening and latest closing times if applied to all stock locations).

3. Models and Stock Levels

Make sure that models are in stock and that you have set minimum stock levels correctly. In this regard, it is essential that you perform regular stock takes to ensure accurate stock location levels for all products at all locations.

You use the ModelsEdit.aspx page to check and update the status of stock items. The Click & Collect feature uses the stock location levels for a stock item. Therefore, on the ModelsEdit.aspx page, the key value is the Local Stock level — make sure that these values are accurate:

Here you can view and adjust the out-of-stock status of your models. Click the More button to see the minimum stock levels:

4. System Emails

You configure System Emails on the SiteEmails.aspx page in the IRP Marketing Cloud section of IRP Admin. The System Emails help topic explains how to do this in detail. In brief, you need to:

• Set up an Order Confirmation Click And Collect email that will be sent to customers automatically when they make an order using Click & Collect.
• Set up a Click And Collect Order Ready For Collection email that you can send to customers when an item they have ordered is ready for collection at their chosen location. You can send this email from either the OrderManage.aspx screen or from the IRP EPOS Click & Collect Orders screen (if you use the IRP EPOS).
• Set up an Click And Collect Order Complete email that will be sent to customers automatically when their Click & Collect is complete. This is sent instead of the usual 'Order Complete' email when a Click and Collect order status is moved from 'Complete Pending Email' to 'Complete'. By default, the email includes the following text: Thanks for collecting your order. If you have any further queries please don't hesitate to get in touch.

In addition to the placeholders for the stock location address details, you can also use specific placeholders for $$ClickAndCollectDateAndTime$$ and $$IsPrePaid$$.

5. Custom Content Pages

Now is a good time to create the custom content pages to explain your Click & Collect terms and conditions for using the service.

6. Application Settings

The Click & Collect master switch is called Enable Click And Collect. To use the Click & Collect feature, make sure that you have checked the box for this in the Application Settings section of IRP Admin.

There are a few additional settings that you may want to examine and possibly adjust:

• Click And Collect Cancelled Order Ban Threshold: If you set this value to — for example — 3, then after a customer has had three Click & Collect orders cancelled they will be banned from placing any further Click & Collect orders. Note that the reason for the cancellation is NOT taken into consideration.
• Click And Collect Hours To Hold Orders: When a customer places a Click & Collect order the selected items will need to be fetched and reserved at the specified location before collection. This values determines the number of hours that the order should be held for before the order should be cancelled.
• Click And Collect Hours To Prepare Order: This value is used when determining the collection time for Click & Collect orders.
• Click And Collect Maximum Locations To Display Before Search Required: Search options will display on the basket and checkout pages for Click & Collect Stock Locations only when there are more than this number of available locations. See Click & Collect From the Customer's Viewpoint below for more information.
• Click And Collect Send Order Confirmation To Location: Check this box if you want to ensure that confirmation emails for Click & Collect orders are copied (using the blind carbon copy (BCC) option in the email) to the stock location where the order is due to be collected by the customer (this assumes that the stock location has a valid email address). This provides advanced notice to the location so that staff there can get orders ready for collection.
• Enable Click And Collect Pay In Store: When enabled, customers will be able to select 'Pay in Store' as a payment method for Click and Collect orders. When disabled, this won't be available. NOTE that this MUST NOT be disabled if Enable Click And Collect Pre Pay is also disabled — at least one of these settings MUST be enabled in order for Click and Collect orders to be allowed (otherwise no valid payment methods will be available, in which case a critical alert is generated and an error message is displayed to customers attempting to place Click and Collect orders).
• Enable Click And Collect Pre Pay: This setting determines whether or not a customer can choose to prepay for a Click & Collect order using a credit card.

7. Click & Collect orders

You use the Orders section of IRP Admin to manage Click & Collect Orders. You can get to this page either by clicking the Click & Collect Orders button in the top navigation Alerts bar, or by going to Orders > Orders in the IRP Admin left navigation menu. Here is an example order:

When you go on to process the order by clicking the Manage button, you can see a summary of the Click & Collect details at the bottom of the screen:

From here you can:

• Send the customer an email informing them that their purchase is ready for collection by clicking the Send Ready For Collection Email button.
• Record the customer payment when they pay in store for their item. To do this, click the Customer Collection button and fill in the payment details.

Cancelled Click & Collect orders

You can view any cancelled Click & Collect orders on the OrdersClickAndCollectCancellationSummary.aspx page. You can find this under Orders > Cancelled Click & Collect in the IRP Admin left navigation menu:

Notice that you can ban a customer from using the Click & Collect feature (and override the ban) — see the following section for an explanation.

Handling customers who don’t collect their orders

You may find that some customers frequently cancel Click & Collect orders or maybe make a habit of not collecting items that they have ordered. You can deal with these customers using the IRP’s ‘Ban from Click & Collect’ feature. You can find this either under Orders > Cancelled Click & Collect section described above, or in the Customers section of IRP Admin. Both sections can also display the number of cancellations made by the customer. Here is the Customers section :

As previously described, you can also use the ‘Click And Collect Cancelled Order Ban Threshold’ Application Setting to ban customers automatically from click and collect when they have cancelled a certain number of click and collect orders. If you ban a customer from Click & Collect they will no longer be able to place Click & Collect orders on your website. As noted, however, you can override this.

8. IRP EPOS

If you are using the IRP EPOS, you will see Click & Collect orders on the Click & Collect Orders tab:

From here you can complete the sale when the customer comes to pick up the items that they have purchased. See the EPOS help topics in the IRP Knowledge Base for more details.

Note: If a customer has prepaid for an order but does not arrive to collect it on the arranged day, you can use the IRP EPOS to automatically refund their accounts.

Note: The screen captures in this section are for example purposes only. Naturally, your website will look very different. What you see also depends on the Application Settings that are enabled on your IRP. Amongst other things, for example, the Click & Collect ‘Select A Payment Method’ screen will only be visible if you have checked the box for the ‘Enable Click And Collect Pre Pay’ Application Setting. In addition, the 'Click And Collect Maximum Locations To Display Before Search Required' Application Setting determines when search options for Stock Locations appear on the basket and checkout pages.

We take up the activity after the customer has chosen an item to purchase and has clicked the Buy button. We will assume that the customer has already logged in to their account.

1. Basket

1. The customer should now be presented with the basket page (Basket.aspx):
   
   
   Note regarding quantity updates: Quantities of collection-only items (items with stock location levels greater than zero plus a zero web level) will revert to the maximum quantity available in Click & Collect locations in the selected country if the customer attempts to increase the quantity above this level. Customers will see a 'Max available' message (Small Translation 3177) beside the quantity.
2. For the purposes of this example, we assume that they want to opt for Click & Collect and so they should either Select a store location at this point (this can be updated later in checkout if necessary) or click the Click & Collect Checkout button.
   
   Note that the messaging under the main Click & Collect heading is configurable via Small Translation 3180 (in the screen capture above, this reads We have a strict social distancing policy in our store). The built-in geo-location finder (Use my location) allows customers to find their nearest location (if supported by their browser).
   
   If an item is not in stock in some locations, an 'Unavailable' label will be displayed against those locations, for example:
   
   This allows the customer to change location or remove items before proceeding. If they select the 'unavailable' location, their basket summary will be grey-out and the following message will be presented (Small Translation 3153):
   
   You define how many locations are displayed to customers by configuring the Application Setting called Click And Collect Maximum Locations To Display Before Search Required (in the 'Click And Collect' grouping).

2. Confirm store selection

1. When the customer clicks the Click & Collect Checkout button, they will be directed to the /Secure/BillingAddress.aspx page where, after completing their address details (see IRP Checkout Overview) they click the Continue to store options button.
2. At this stage, the customer is on the Secure/Postage.aspx page and they can confirm their chosen location or select a different location from the list displayed:
   
3. If there is more than one store in the location that the customer has selected then they can use radio buttons to select a specific store. Again note that the 'Click And Collect Maximum Locations To Display Before Search Required' Application Setting determines when search options for Stock Locations appear on the basket and checkout pages.
4. Finally they should click the Continue to Payment Options button to progress to the next stage.

3. Payment method

Now the customer has to select the payment method for their order. If you have checked the box for the ‘Enable Click And Collect Pre Pay’ Application Setting, then they can choose to enter their card details or to pay in store:

The customer should now either fill in the card details and click the Review Your Order button or, alternatively, click the In Store button. In the latter case, the customer will need to pay for their item when they collect it from their selected location. For the purposes of this example, we will assume that they have chosen to pay in store.

4. Check order

In the penultimate step, the customer has to check the details of their Click & Collect order:

To progress (whether without making changes or after making changes), the customer then needs to click the Place Order button.

5. Order confirmed

Finally, the customer will see the following screen, showing that their order has been successfully completed:

This screen includes information about:

• Where they can pick up their purchases (‘Collect From’).
• What day and time they can pick up their purchases (‘Collection Time’).
• What method they use to pay for their purchases (‘Pay In Store’).
• What they should bring with them when they pick up their purchases (the confirmation email or Order ID – Small Translation 2032).

As an IRP Administrator, you will now see the order on the back end, as described in the Click & Collect Orders section above.

When you are confident fulfilling orders, make sure that you advertise the Click & Collect feature to your site visitors and customers. If you promote the feature well you could realise big benefits. You could:

• Make sure that your custom content pages adequately explain the terms and conditions for using the service.
• Create banners to maximise awareness on your website.
• Email your customers to let them know that Click & Collect is available to them.
• Make the most of your remarketing and display advertising channels.
• Advertise the Click & Collect feature across your social media and referral channels.
• Make the best use of any paid offline advertising you use to advertise the Click & Collect feature.
• Remember — as with all ecommerce, multichannel thinking is key.

There are multiple helpful resources on the web. Here’s just a small selection from the Econsultancy site:

• 15 Stats that show why click-and-collect is so important for retailers
• How do ecommerce sites approach the click & collect UX?
• What does the ideal click and collect service look like?
• What have we learnt about click and collect this Christmas?