Changes in consumer habits have meant that retailers need to be increasingly adept at picking up on new trends and technological advances in order to keep pace with a fast moving market.
Consumers are now more pressed for time than ever before, so offering flexibility and a number of collection options are necessary to meet the needs of their customers.
While other shopping centres have experimented with click and collect hubs located within the development, Brighton shopping centre Churchill Square has announced plans this week to go one step further in increasing its customer satisfaction levels. The complex will trial a “store to door” delivery service over the next two weeks, and if successful may consider implementing a permanent service of this kind in the future.
Customers who live within a ten mile radius of the shopping centre will be able to purchase items online and have their orders delivered to their homes within a selected two hour time slot. This service will also allow for real time tracking of their packages, reducing the likelihood of customers being away from home at the appointed delivery time.
Standard Life Investments, which owns Churchill Square shopping centre, has chosen to implement the trial as part of its commitment to improving convenience and fulfilment for consumers. Head of UK Retail for the firm, Ed Jenkins, called the idea “simple yet effective”.
He continued; “The nature of retailing is changing which is why we’re constantly looking for new ideas to improve the experience of shoppers’ access to our portfolio of centres.”
While the service is expected to prove popular with Churchill Square’s customers, it will not run full time and will instead be operational during the centre’s busiest hours from Thursday to Sunday. As a result, its reach will be lower than it has the potential to be, but is still expected to prove useful for around 350,000 households.
With competition in the retail industry remaining incredibly high, thanks to the still-growing popularity of online shopping, bricks and mortar based retailers have to be increasingly inventive in order to grab the attention of customers.
As this scheme will address the weakest aspect of online shopping – unpredictable delivery hours – it will be interesting to see how customers react, and whether the initiative will be adopted by other shopping centres and out of town developments in the coming months.
Would you choose to shop at your local shopping centre rather than with an online retailer if this service was made available to you?
