Online shoppers will soon be able to buy a product from one retailer and pick up from another as part of an inventive new scheme that launches in the summer.
Halfords is among the retailers that have already signed up to logistics firm DPD’s PickUp click and collect initiative.
The innovative scheme is intended to drive footfall to stores by providing convenient collection points. DPD is seeking to build a network of 2,500 stores across big retailers in the UK.
Halfords has committed 351 stores to the initiative. Its director of digital Katrina Jamieson said the “very smart” service fits with the retailer’s customer-centric strategy. She said PickUp will give “busy, time-pressed customers another parcel delivery option”.
The Rowlands and Numark pharmacy chains have also signed up to PickUp, adding 683 shops.
The scheme, which launches in June, will enable customers shopping online with a participating DPD client to have their order delivered to a Halfords, Rowland or Numark store.
DPD boss Dwain McDonald said he is in discussions with other big-name clients about allowing their goods to be delivered to participating retail peers and acting as pick-up points themselves.
Although McDonald declined to say which retailers he is in talks with, DPD’s clients include Marks & Spencer, John Lewis, Arcadia, River Island and Asos.
McDonald said retailers will have control over which stores they team up with to avoid sending their own customers into rivals’ shops.
PickUp is designed to ensure customers anywhere in the UK are within a 10- minute drive of a local pick-up point.
Martin Gill, principal analyst at Research firm Forrester, said: “This will be more likely to succeed where you get contrasting categories. The concept of Asos working with Superdrug – that is the kind of thing I could see being attractive to customers, but also very attractive to both brands.”
This week the Government paved the way for an explosion of click-and-collect services when it removed the requirement for planning permission to install pick-up points in stores.
Click and collect has been billed as the saviour of the high street. Collect+ provides a network of 5,800 local convenience stores that act as pick up points for deliveries.
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