The Biggest Thing in Online Shopping? A Store.
Turns out, even in a pandemic, customers like the option of picking up digital orders curbside. And it’s helping Target and Walmart win big.
Stores still have a role to play in retail, and it’s one that might surprise.
Photographer: Yichuan Cao/NurPhoto via Getty Images
It’s no surprise to hear that retailers’ online sales are surging through the coronavirus pandemic. But would you guess that for some of the biggest winners, it’s their physical stores that gave those sales a boost?
Even as consumers grapple with stay-at-home orders and their own fears of contagion, a surprisingly large number are willing to pick up their digital orders at a store. Target Corp. on Wednesday said sales through its curbside drive-up option — shoppers order online, pick up at a store — increased 1,000% in April compared to a year earlier. More than 2 million customers tested out the drive-up feature for the first time, the big-box retailer said, and the volume was so strong that there were more orders collected that way in the first quarter than in all of 2019. Sales through Lowes.com were up 80% in the three months ended May 1, and more than half of those online orders were picked up in a store, the home-improvement retailer said on Wednesday.