Drive-Thru Retail

June 19, 2012  by in UnCategorized   

By Home Furnishings Business in on June 2012

Welcome to the drive-thru furniture era! There€™s a new twist in online ordering, drive-thru furniture, that offers all of the convenience of Chili€™s To Go. You simply place your furniture order online, drive down to your local store and have your purchases loaded into your car or truck€”without having to get out of your vehicle.

Nebraska Furniture Mart€™s Drive-Thru Pickup promises to have shoppers on their way in 10 minutes, or about the same time it takes to buy a Happy Meal. After ordering online, you drive to the dedicated pick-up area, which is covered, and then enter your order code into an ATM-style terminal. According to the company, the 10-minute goal is based on average wait times in 2011.

Nebraska Furniture Mart isn€™t the only retailer using the click-and-drive approach. Sears has long offered online customers the option of avoiding shipping charges by picking up furniture, mattresses and other purchases€”usually in about five minutes.

However, while Sears may be quicker, most customers have to come in to the store to start the pick-up process. It€™s likely many shoppers will prefer the convenience of Nebraska Furniture Mart€™s drive-up approach€”particularly moms who may have kids in the car, especially on bad weather days.
What€™s interesting about this drive-thru furniture innovation is that it seems to spring from shopper preferences rather than from the Internet theorists who once predicted that online furniture retailing would evolve in a completely different way. Back in the late €˜90s, some industry prognosticators believed purely online furniture stores would be a threat to brick-and-mortar furniture stores.
Of course, those predictions fizzled with the death of several dot-com furniture dealers around 2000. Since then, many existing furniture store chains€”following the click-and-mortar example of retailers like Pottery Barn€”have been successful with online purchasing aimed at helping customers complete purchases they may have initiated inside the retail store days or hours earlier.
With the new iteration of online selling, retailers had to learn to create in-store signage and other messages to offer customers the convenience of point-and-click shopping once they€™ve returned home and reached a decision on selecting a store€™s red sofa, for example, versus a blue one. Sometimes, customers also make add-on purchases at the store€™s Web site€”like buying a rug that may have been recommended during the store visit.
Some stores are also designing in-store vignettes designed to build interest in their online offerings. In many cases, these store displays may include a room package of as many as a dozen closely coordinated items€”and signage telling customers that package can be viewed online. If a store display connects with a shopper€™s design appetite, but she€™s not ready to buy right away, offering a package online can lead to future interactions with her€”online and in the store.
Drive-thru furniture pickup reminds us just how hard retailers need to work to appeal to a shopper€™s need for convenience. Customer pick-up areas are often less than an afterthought to many furniture stores. What Nebraska Furniture Mart has done is make the pickup area nearly as important as the front door of the store€”with attractive graphics, bank-style terminals and drive-up lanes, and a roof covering to make pickups just as easy on a rainy day as a hot day.
There€™s little doubt that you€™ll see other furniture stores following Nebraska Furniture Mart€™s example. As they do, I€™m willing to wager that some stores will even install window displays and poster-style graphics in their own pick-up areas to inspire additional purchases with messages like €œWhy not come back to pick up a new mattress just as easily?€
Of course, only a minority of customers have vehicles capable of hauling home bulky furniture, but it€™s obvious that some retailers think investing in their pick-up operations is important in winning over those customers who don€™t want to pay a delivery fee or arrange to meet a delivery person at home.
The message in all of this is that it might be time to look at your own store and ask yourself what you can do to make your store even more convenient? Never mind that you€™d prefer customers come in and browse and seek help; think of ways to sell furniture to today€™s time-starved shoppers who seem to be putting higher value on convenience than many might assume. HFB