eBay’s Click & Collect system has been in place for some months now. Announced in Autumn 2013, the idea is simple: sellers can opt-in and buyers can collect their purchases from any one of the 700-or-so Argos stores in Britain. That includes stores in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland but not the Irish Republic.
It’s a free option for sellers and plugs into buyers’ keenness for convenience, click and collect and the like.
But HOW is it going for sellers? Certainly lots of sellers love it. It’s an additional delivery channel with little extra work required on behalf of eBay UK sellers.
I talk to a lot of people involved in eBay buying and selling all over Britain and I’d say the reception is broadly positive when it comes to Click & Collect. But there are also some issues and plenty of room for improvement.
eBay UK “Click & Collect” should now have been rolled out to all eBay UK sellers and yet I’m still hearing from some who have been excluded and are unable to join in. Are you one of them? Moreover, do you know why?
Buyers have 7 days to collect their purchases from their local nominated Argos branch after delivery and ideally that timeframe could be extended. The number one complaint I hear from eBay sellers using C&C is buyers not getting to the local store within the time limit. It’s hard to fault eBay here because the texts and emails couldn’t be clearer but a longer window seems desireable.
My experience of the in-store collection has never been bravura either. I’ve bought using C&C on half a dozen occasions now (always using my local Argos store) and the service isn’t swift. It does seem to take quite some time to find my delivery. Has anyone else had a similar experience?
But my biggest concern is coverage. Tamebay likes the eBay’s Click and Collect deal with Argos.
We like that is is free and easy and effective but it’s not enough.
Does Argos have an exclusivity deal? Argos may have 700 plus stores but there is an opportunity for buyer consignments to be delivered, in a similar way, to other places. Bring on a major supermarket chain or pub group. Take a look at what Amazon offer.
Are you loving eBay’s Argos Click and Collect?
14 Responses
Its a great offer and we certainly ship plenty of product to stores. Sadly we get plenty of product back as well. Non collections seem high to me, but then perhaps thats just me.
I have been speaking to a few suppliers, companies and delivery firms about click and collect and no-one seems to split out returns/non-collections to know if the percentage is higher using that kind of delivery rather than straight to the customer.
Click and collect is great but is to easy for buyers to think ‘I can’t be bothered to collect’, ‘I have found something else’ etc.
I think ebay/argos should extend the time frame to 14 days as a lot can happen in our lived over a 7 day period.
No impact on me as far as the despatch process, but the take up in my sector is poor, at most 5%. Unconvinced that this is leading to any significant increase in sales. Would the buyers have bought from me anyway, or how many only bought because Click and Collect was available.
Only had returns at Christmas, but it triggers eBay’s return process which doesn’t tell you until it arrives back who is sending it, so if it was a fault or remorse return or just wasn’t collected . In the meantime you are exposed to the whims of the buyer on feedback without being able to make any correction if it is a fault. I would prefer more info as part of the return process.
It is a valid question to ask if delivery would have been more successful to the buyers home/work address. It is too easy to say “I can’t be bothered to collect it”
Uptake for me has been extremely poor. I’ve had 1 click and collect sale since the scheme started. But this may also be becuase I only offer it on a few items.
But so far no-one has asked me that seeing as I have X available on click and collect, could Y be made available too?
I have no idea if the order was collected, or even arrived at store. I can only assume everything went to plan as I heard nothing from customer, received no feedback and the goods haven’t come back to me.
It was no different to me to ship to a store over shipping to a normal customer home/work address.
I’m 50/50 with it. I might introduce more items in the future, but with the present performance of ebay, it’s not worth any extra effort as the site provided more problems and difficult customers than success.
Argos tends to be on the High St. without parking facilities. Far more sensible to have chosen an out of town with Car Parking, like …… almost anybody else! Any Supermarket, Network Rail (though as they are short sighted a lot of stations are unmanned these days), DIY Sheds, Tyre stores (Quickfit type), Car Dealerships (they would probably do it free to get people in their showrooms), Petrol Stations.
Anybody but Argos!
I love it, I’d like to add returns in the mix as at this point buyers and sellers have to deal with returns outside the Click & Collect system. It would be more convenient for buyers to go to Argos with their returns than have to contact the seller, a sort of use managed returns but via Argos drop off rather than post office can’t be that hard to set up if the package has gone through the system one way already.
Very poor take up for me, not yet convinced buyers love it versus next day scheduled delivery but then I’m not yet convinced buyers love free delivery either. For items that are ordered in >1 quantities, I need to do more testing on my free delivery sales and ranking boost versus delivery charged and no ranking boost.
Anecdotally, apparently eBay took C&C away from ‘40% of sellers’ as a test to see if it impacted sales, which may explain why some don’t have it.
I have no idea if this is true, it’s something I was told that one seller was told by eBay CS.
It seems a fairly pointless facility for small products which fit through a letterbox as the time to the customers hands is the same, the same postage method is used etc.
Customers seem to confuse it with more traditional click and collect, and expect they can get their item within a few hours of ordering.
We do offer it, and some customers do use it, but i do not believe it has provided any increase in business.
I have used it twice it works ok they have opened a special counter for it, if you cant have stuff delivered at home this is ideal
I don’t use it for my own sales – as my items fit in letterboxes it seems pointless.
However I do use it to buy. It’s alright for ordering large items but when I ordered a thin envelope sized item they lost it. This was even sent signed for and signature of the store manager showed on Royal Mail website but it was no-where to be found. I did get my money back but I won’t use it for small items again.
I have friends that work at Argos; it was sold to the staff as an advertising / marketing project and was not expected to impact on volumes. 6 months down the line, this is exactly the case – ebay sales have not generated any real increase in workload, excepting some problems where items are not in the store when the ebay customer comes to collect, and likewise a few problems and minor nuisance of returns of non collected items. I did ask if non collection was a major issue, but because so few ebay items are actually arriving at individual stores, there was no opinion