Best Buy Caters To Consumer Preferences With In-Store Digital Upgrades

The accelerated arrival of the digital-first economy has happened so fast that retailers are making adjustments on the go. One of the most significant at this late point of the holiday season is from Best Buy, which announced this week that it is changing some store formats and delivery features to handle online orders and a sharp increase in curbside pickup.

Noting that the company has seen millions of curbside pickup orders over the past two weeks, Best Buy has ramped up some existing services and accelerated others. Curbside pickup hours have been extended, with the claim that nearly every store can have orders ready in an hour. Same-day and next-day delivery have also been extended, and partnerships with delivery companies like Shipt, Roadie and Instacart have been expanded, allowing customers to check out online as late as 3 p.m. local time and get their orders by 9 p.m. that evening.

The biggest changes come from employee deployment and ship-from-store hubs. Best Buy employees are delivering orders until 10:30 p.m. The company also announced that it will turn 340 of its stores into ship-from-store hubs, with 70 percent of all ship-from-store units expected to be sent from these hubs. Best Buy is also increasing its reliance on pickup location partners to 16,000 locations, including CVS, Michaels and UPS.

Best Buy had been testing the ship-from-store concept since the beginning of the pandemic. Combined with its reliance on curbside and delivery, that shows the company is catering to consumer preferences for touchless shopping and payment.

PYMNTS’ recent research report, How We Shop, found that 57 percent of all consumers say merchants’ digital payment and pickup offerings impact their willingness to shop in stores. They are particularly interested in using contactless payment options, as 26 percent and 23 percent of consumers say merchants must accept contactless cards and offer curbside pickup, respectively, for them to feel comfortable shopping in a store. This underscores a widespread desire to avoid more traditional in-store payment options, such as cash or cards, which require consumers to make physical contact with paper bills and POS terminals.

The Best Buy moves are also supported by the PYMNTS’ Digital Shopping Index, which shows that consumers are more often starting their shopping journeys online and having products shipped to their homes. The portion of consumers who prefer wholly digital shopping journeys has increased 22 percent since the pandemic began, with these digital natives now making up more than one-quarter of U.S. consumers.

“The factors driving this shift are not hard to surmise,” states the report. “Many stores are operating with limited hours and other restrictions, while consumers want to minimize the risk of exposure to the coronavirus and avoid other stresses at a time when many already face their fair share. This doesn’t mean consumers are ready to forsake brick-and-mortar stores, but they are looking for ways to make shopping trips as efficient and safe as possible. Our research shows that many consumers have shifted to cross-channel commerce, such as buying food and products online and retrieving them in stores or curbside. The share of cross-channel shoppers has grown by 28.2 percent since the pandemic began, and it now represents 12 percent of all consumers.”

The Consumer Satisfaction Index within the report also shows that the online natives’ shopping journeys have the highest scores — 158.7 overall on a scale of with a median of 100. Mobile natives’ journeys follow closely behind. Brick-and-mortar shoppers’ scores are nearly two times lower. The specific digital features consumers favor reflect their desires to minimize the time spent inside stores. Curbside pickup use has notably grown from 10.8 percent of digital purchases in March to 15.5 percent in July.

The use of other features similarly seems to be driven by a desire for safer, more efficient shopping experiences. The digital features that experienced the greatest usage increases since the pandemic’s onset included product availability tools, mobile order-ahead and contactless cards or digital wallet payments.