Best Buy launches e-commerce pickup in 175 New York UPS, CVS locations

Dive Brief:

Best Buy launched order pickup services in 175 CVS and UPS locations in the New York market this quarter, Best Buy CEO Corie Barry said on the company's Q3 earnings call last week. The company is "focused on expanding both our fulfillment options and in-home resources" in the region, Barry said.
"New York is a great place for us to start primarily because of the density of consumers and our sheer lack of stores in some of the areas we would like to support customers," Mike Mohan, president and COO at Best Buy, said on the call. Mohan said the company is looking to scale the program nationally after the holidays.
According to Barry, roughly 99% of Best Buy customers live in a ZIP code where next-day delivery is available, up from 80% last quarter. For customers choosing to buy online and pickup in-store, 80% of orders are ready in under 30 minutes.

Dive Insight:

Best Buy is trying to give its customers more personalization in their delivery options. Starting in New York, the company is also allowing e-commerce customers who choose a three-hour window same-day delivery.

The move places Best Buy in competition with Amazon, which has same-day offerings in locations across the country and began cutting its Prime delivery time from two days down to one earlier this year.

To compete with the e-commerce giant, Best Buy executives said the company is leveraging its robust store fulfillment network and working to make all its delivery options, from ship-to-home to in-store or curbside pickup, as seamless as possible.

Multiple retail industry studies have demonstrated alternative pickup and delivery options' increasing popularity with shoppers, and that popularity can translate into increased foot traffic and in-store sales even as e-commerce becomes a larger share of the market.

One in five customers want online orders delivered to a location other than their residence for convenience or security reasons, UPS found in its 2019 Pulse of the Online Shopper Survey. As a result, the carrier has been focused on expanding its MyChoice parcel pickup and dropoff network, offering over 38,000 locations where customers can receive or return orders including CVS, Michael's and Advance Auto Parts.

Among big-box retailers, Target and Walmart are leading the pack when it comes to buy online, pickup in-store (BOPIS), according to a study from Coresight Research. The report found over 50% of shoppers who use BOPIS picked up an order from Walmart and 34% from Target in the last year.