John Lewis, one of the UK’s leading and most innovative online retailers, is to start making a £2 charge on Click and Collect orders below £30.
Apparently the new charge will hit about 20% of orders and it could well encourage buyers to up their order values and buy more. The charge will affect those who want to click and then collect at their local John Lewis/Waitrose store or Collect Plus collection point.
John Lewis MD Andy Street says of the change: “We are sure customers will understand why we are doing this. There is a huge logistical operation behind this system and quite frankly it’s unsustainable. We consider ourselves to be leaders and we want to take the lead on this.”
Street may well be right. We’ve often wondered whether bearing the cost of deliveries and returns is sustainable in the long term. It is easier for bigger retailers but can be a very expensive business for ecommerce SMEs.
What do you reckon?
3 Responses
Hopefully this is a sign of things to come and that the blanket free postage/click and collect etc on everything will end and start to change customers habits.
This could also be a sign that Click and Collect returns are much higher than ‘normal’ returns which is what we are seeing with selling on ebay with Argos and selling through Tesco Marketplace. There are a large number of orders that never even get collected as customers change their minds or can’t be bothered.
I think this is a fantastic move.
It is the elephant in the room for ecommerce. Logistics and delivery costs are a huge part of our businesses and we need to ensure the customer knows that there is a significant cost in delivery.
Innovation is high in this sector, but it does come at a cost. The phrase ‘Free’ delivery has always caught in my gullet as it is patently not free. I wonder if eBay will take this into consideration?
eBay will only ever take this into consideration some long while after they realise that it is limiting the inventory offered for C&C on their site.