What is BOPIS?
BOPIS is one of the most popular methods of eCommerce transactions. BOPIS means Buy-Online-Pickup-In-Store. For example, you purchase a nice dress from Macy’s and select BOPIS as your preferred “delivery” option. Next, you would make your merry way to the Macy’s you selected as your pickup location. After a, sometimes lengthy, wait you would receive your package and make your way home. This method of eCommerce eliminates the time consumers spend in the store looking for what they want on store shelves/racks. It’s meant to keep consumers on their computers for the majority of the time spent shopping. That way it becomes the “perfect” blend of eCommerce and regular in-store commerce. However, there’s one company that thinks that perfect just isn’t enough. Furthermore, they’ve developed a method that goes past even Amazon’s BOPIS improvements. They’ve developed a BOPIS method they’ve dubbed iPickup.
Position Imaging
At this point, you may have been asking yourself, “Who’s they?” Well, “they” is Stratham-based logistics technologies firm Position Imaging Inc. They develop innovative tracking technologies that provide accurate real-time products and equipment location awareness. Their first major product was the “Smart Package Room”.
It really is a smart room, in every sense of the word. For example, when a package is placed inside, the room knows exactly where it is, when it was put there, if it was dropped or moved inside the room, when and who picked it up. It takes a lot of innovation to make something like that work. Furthermore, Position Imaging decided that wasn’t enough. They were already focusing on data surrounding packages. Why not take it a step further? Next, Position Imaging set their eyes on eCommerce. More specifically, Position Imaging set their eyes on the BOPIS process.
iPickup aims to give consumers an extra safe, extra smart method of BOPIS. It allows consumers to have complete control over their BOPIS experience. Additionally, from the moment the consumer sits down in front of their computer and decides they want to order something to the moment they pick it up, they are in control. iPickup is essentially the gift of “total” control. How does this “total” control work? Let’s go through the process.
iPickup
Once the package has been ordered, shipped, and has arrived at the pickup location it is placed in a “smart” room. Instead of arriving and waiting in a line the customer uses a receipt they are given to find their package. Additionally, a light guidance system then points to the corresponding passage and the customer can then pick up their package and take it home. If the customer goes to pick up the wrong package a sound will play to notify them of their mistake. This goes beyond the locker system Amazon uses to supersede the traditional BOPIS system. Furthermore, it eliminates the need for unnecessary wait times and rude interactions. “Retailers are successful because they are good at selling products, not delivering them,” Position Imaging CEO Ned Hill says. “eCommerce fulfillment for retailers not equipped for or interested in managing package delivery is simply a poor use of their time and resources.” This improves upon tried and true methods and puts an efficient, technological spin to them that’s sure to pick up steam.
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