Taking Omni-Channel to the next level in Saudi Arabia and India!
We’re extremely thrilled to announce the arrival of Click & Collect for our online brands in India and Saudi Arabia, together with Return to Store in India. With these launches, we believe that we’re even closer to giving our millions of customers a better, more seamless and truly Omni-Channel shopping experience.
What is Click & Collect?
Click & Collect is a convenient Omni-Channel feature that allows you to shop and pay for an order online and collect it from a store of your choice.
Check out our video below to understand how Click & Collect works and why we think our customers will love it.
In India, we now offer Click & Collect for our three online brands including:
In Saudi Arabia, Click & Collect is available for:
Click & Collect has been steadily growing in popularity around the world. According to IRUK Top 500, 58% of the UK’s top 500 retailers now offer Click & Collect services, while Planet Retail states that over 75% of the country’s online shoppers are expected to use the feature by the end of 2017. Many top traditional retailers in the US have also adopted Click & Collect. Gartner reported that by 2015, the service was offered by 45% of large firms with an annual revenue greater than USD 3 billion.
In May this year, we launched Click & Collect for our UAE customers, followed by Bahrain in September. The response we received in just six months has been truly encouraging. Around 22% of all our orders in the UAE have been via Click & Collect. In fact, for some brands like Splash, Shoe Mart and Max, that figure has been as high as over 30% of all orders.
Extending our reach
Another key factor we had to take into account while launching in Saudi Arabia and India was the size of these countries when compared to the UAE or Bahrain. While we covered over 128 stores in the UAE, that number has been nearly doubled for India (236 stores) or more than doubled in Saudi Arabia (280 stores). We also worked to ensure that our reach was as comprehensive as possible and we’re proud to say that we now offer Click & Collect across 78 cities in India and 66 cities in Saudi Arabia!
And that’s not all. As this was a completely new feature in the two countries, we had to ensure that our Store Executives were equipped to give our customers the best possible in-store experience. To this end, we rigorously trained around 21,000 Store Executives in the months leading up to the launch.
What is Return to Store?
Return to Store allows customers to easily return their online purchases to a store and have their refund initiated instantly. Customers who’ve paid by Cash on Delivery receive a cash refund right away in-store.
Over the last few months, we’ve successfully rolled out this feature in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, where it has emerged as the most preferred way of returning an online product. Currently, over 57% of our customers in the UAE and over 47% in Saudi Arabia prefer to go to a store to make their returns. We’re confident that Return to Store will be equally well-received by our customers in India.
Return to Store is now available for our three online brands in India:
With this launch, our customers can return their online purchases in three easy ways. These include:
- Return to Store.
- Request a return online.
- Call customer support to schedule a pick-up.
How does this returns method benefit the customer?
A big advantage for the customer is that their refund is initiated at the store itself. Customers simply need to visit their nearest store with their products and the invoice. Customers who have paid by cash get a cash refund or they receive a refund to their card, bank account or wallet, depending on their payment method. Customers can also opt for a Credit Note, which can be used to shop online.
Just like Click & Collect, we’ve been fortunate to leverage our vast store network in India to make Return to Store a success. Lifestyle customers can drop into a Lifestyle store and Max customers to a Max store, while Home Centre’s online shoppers can opt either for a standalone Home Centre store or a combined Home Centre and Lifestyle store.
It’s as simple as that!
As always, we’ll continue to track and improve our features regularly. In the meantime, we’re working on a bunch of innovations to make your shopping experience even more enjoyable. Keep watching this space, we’ll keep you posted!
