Endless Aisles: The Future of Retail Shopping
The retail landscape is more competitive and demanding than ever. Managing inventory is increasingly challenging, and customers expect a wide product selection, available anywhere, anytime.
Leaving empty-handed is just not an option anymore.
Studies show that customers do still prefer shopping in-store and interacting with brands. Physical locations however, have limited shelf space and can only stock a finite number of products. The solution? Endless aisles.
What Are Endless Aisles?
Endless aisles is a concept that allows customers to order items online, while they are in-store. In essence, they can purchase items that aren’t available to take home but it can be shipped to their homes a few days later. It’s also known as ‘buy-in-store, ship to customer’.
It’s basically the flip side of BOPIS- or ‘Click and Collect’
Offering endless aisle services in your retail store is like carrying all the products you have available online or in your supply chain in your actual store.
Benefits of Endless Aisles.
1. Hold Less Inventory
Operating both online and offline? Endless aisles enable you to sell your full product catalog without needing to stock each item at every store location.
This makes just-in-time inventory strategies more feasible. You can keep extra stock in your warehouse, at larger store locations, or with third-party fulfilment centres to ship directly to your customers.
This gives in-store shoppers access to more products without complicating inventory management or cluttering stores.
2. Build Customer Loyalty
By offering more selection at your brick-and-mortar locations, you decrease the chance of customers going elsewhere.
Research shows that 37% of in-store shoppers will visit a different store if the item they’re looking for is out of stock, and almost half would abandon the purchase entirely.
Endless aisles help you capitalise on the buyer intent that brought them into the store, without losing sales due to low stock.
Educating your audience about your online offerings also increases the chance they’ll become online shoppers in the future.
3. Reduce Online Returns
Online return rates are significantly higher than those for physical stores because online shoppers can’t interact with the product before buying it.
Endless aisles solve this problem. Customers can check the product’s quality in-store and decide if it’s right for them, reducing the likelihood of returns and exchanges.
Example: Soxy. Jessica Kats, an e-commerce and retail expert at Soxy, noted a significant reduction in returns and exchanges after implementing endless aisles. Customer satisfaction and retention metrics surged, with about 27% of in-store shoppers choosing this option, jumping to 41% during the holiday season.
4. Enhance the Shopping Experience with Showrooming
Show-rooming allows shoppers to browse items in-store and complete their purchase online. Techniques like QR codes and email carts bridge the gap between physical and digital shopping.
Nearly 60% of consumers expect retailers to dedicate more floor space to experiences rather than products by 2025. Investing in show-rooming can help meet these expectations.
5. Order Fulfilment
Retailers don’t need stock on-hand to operate an endless aisle. Drop-shipping out-of-stock products directly to a customer’s address maintains a continuous customer experience and provides access to endless inventory without the need for warehousing.
In Conclusion
Endless aisles offer a powerful way to enhance your retail strategy, combining the strengths of online and offline shopping to meet customer expectations and streamline inventory management.
With solutions like these, you can keep your customers happy, reduce return rates, and build a more efficient retail operation.
PricePoint IT makes endless aisles a reality with an innovative tech suite and more than two decades experience in retail and technology. We help retailers bridge the gap between online and in-store, so they can sell anywhere, anytime and never miss another sale.
Scope our range of innovative tech solutions or read more about us here
