Retailers hope that self-serve towers will reduce wait times
Self-serve pickup towers are one of the latest methods major retailers have to try to keep pace with their internet competitors, cutting the time it takes for customers to pick up their online purchases.
Walmart and Canadian Tire have be- come the latest to deploy the towers to attract more business to their websites, while cutting customer service lineups in stores.
Canadian Tire is the first in the country to have the robotic towers, with two locations in Toronto — the Stockyards
and The Queensway — as well as stores in Calgary, Saskatoon and Vancouver. Walmart has them at more than 700 locations in the U.S., following a rollout in early October, and will launch them here in early in 2019, first with two Ontario locations, in Oakville and Mississauga.
Both chains plan to gradually spread the pickup tower system to stores across the country, with the initial pilot launches at select locations before deciding how far to extend the system. Canadian Tire has 1,700 retail stores and gas outlets, while there are 411 Walmarts in Canada.
Daryl Porter, Walmart Canada’s vice-president of omnichannel operations and online grocery, said customer response has been positive in the U.S. and the same is expected here.
“It’s about speed and convenience,” he said. “We think it enhances the experience of coming to Walmart. Saving the customer time and money puts us in a great spot as a retailer.”
With the pickup tower system still in the early stages, Canadian Tire hasn’t yet compiled customer response data but “based on our research and understanding of our customers, we believe our customers will respond well to a speedier, more efficient and convenient pickup experience,” a company spokesperson replied by email.
After placing an online order, making a payment and choosing where to pick it up, a cus- tomer gets an email notice when the order is filled and ready. Once the customer arrives at the store, the automated self-serve machine scans a purchaser’s order code and the items are dispensed from an output compartment in less than a minute.
The 16-foot high towers hold 250 to 300 customer packages, but within size limits, so Walmart has paired its system with lockers to hold bigger things, like TV screens, hockey sticks, snow shovels and garden tools. For now, items exceeding a tower’s size/weight limits at Canadian Tire are either held at the store’s service counter for pickup, or retrieved from stock by a store clerk when the customer arrives.
To further reduce wait times at U.S. Walmart stores, staff will be using hand-held checkout devices to cut lines and wait times during the Black Friday and Christmas shopping periods, another e-commerce move that’s likely to be followed by other retailers on both sides of the border. Both Walmart Canada and Canadian Tire also offer home delivery options as part of their expanding e-commerce ventures.
“We know that 70 per cent of our in-store sales are influenced by a digital interaction with our website,” the spokesperson added. Even when they don’t purchase online, many Canadian Tire customers rou- tinely check the website beforehand to see if their local store has a certain product, what it costs and how many are on hand.
David Soberman, a professor of marketing at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, said the introduction of the self-serve pickup towers system by Walmart and Canadian Tire is a logical step in retail e-commerce expansion, in keeping up with consumer needs and trends.