Pickup-Only Stores May Be the Future
The Starbucks Pickup concept exemplifies embedded retail, says Chris Walton.
Feb 04, 2021 | 3 min read
NEW YORK—Retail guru and NACS contributor Chris Walton last year had his first experience with the new Starbucks Pickup store near Penn Station in New York, and he liked it. A lot.
Walton is founder of Omni Talk, a retail blog; and Third Haus, a retail technology lab. He also was a speaker at last year’s NACS Leadership Forum in Miami. Walton is impressed by the way Starbucks is changing foodservice, according to an article he wrote for Forbes in 2020.
“It looks like a Starbucks, it walks like a Starbucks, heck, it even quacks like a Starbucks, but there is one big difference—customers place their orders from their mobile phones,” Walton said. “The experience is almost identical to every other garden variety mobile order pickup experience at nearly every other Starbucks in the world. Only at this Starbucks, the operations and architecture are designed 100% for pickup rather than mobile ordering feeling like a bolt-on design option.”
The entire store has been reconfigured for a mobile-first experience. Back-of-house operations are bigger and placed well out of view from customers, while the front-of-house is merchandised to facilitate quick order fulfillment. And the ordering process is simple.
Customers order their favorite items using their phones, go to the store and see their names within a digital queue on the wall. When their orders are ready, their names are called, and the screen notifies them that their orders are ready for pickup.
“Then, as a final wave and gesture, a super nice barista hands customers their drinks, says a few pleasantries, and everyone is off and on their way,” Walton said. “No friction. No fuss. Just the same great Starbucks experience thousands of people have had, thousands of times.”
Embedded retail meets consumers in the moments and spaces when consumers need retail the most, like at subway stations, airports, gyms and coworking facilities. And it’s just starting to gain momentum, Walton said. Starbucks’ pickup-only store is one example. BOPIS (buy online, pickup in store) or BOPIL (buy online, pickup in locker) are two more.
“They all point to a new reality, a reality in which brands will be built not on the backs of helpful salespeople pushing products but by way of digital tools that help customers acquire what they want on their own,” he said. “Human interactions, in other words, will shift over time from pre-purchase activities to post-purchase sales support. Humanity will always be important in the right context. But understanding when it is most important is still the question that will separate the haves from the have-nots in the future. Great customer service in 2030 will be a far cry from 2010.”
Just as Starbucks blazed the trail of mobile payments, so too is Starbucks giving the world a first glimpse into customer service post-purchase, he added.
For more insights from Walton, don’t miss “Know Thyself, Know Thy Customer,” in the February 2020 issue of NACS Magazine. And download Convenience Matters podcast No. 211: Design the Ideal Customer Experience as Walton chats with hosts Jeff Lenard, NACS vice president of strategic industry initiatives, and Carolyn Schnare, NACS director of strategic initiatives.
Food prepared on-site Facilities management Format Device integration
