I'll have a C please Bob!

I’ll have a C please Bob!

That may be a cultural reference that will fall on stony ground for people below a certain age. However, the iconic reference to Blockbusters, and its legendary host Bob Holness, does resonate with the payment and shopping priorities for brands in our, involuntarily, redesigned way of selling goods to customers.

Contactless – Click – Collect - Queueing (okay, we accept that last one was taking a phonetically alliterative liberty) are the watchwords for CPG to keep sales moving and get goods to consumers, in safe environments, with as little friction as possible.

CONTACTLESS
Payment provider Paypoint has seen a surge in card transactions of up to 75% as people have been asked to ditch cash to help prevent the spread of Covid19. This change in shopper behaviour was matched by a precipitous fall in the use of ATMs, with cashpoint transactions falling by nearly 40% in April. In it’s annual statement the company explained:

“Card payments have benefited as consumers tended to use their local convenience stores more and in replacement of going to restaurants and entertainment venues. Bill payment transactions have reduced as energy companies have provided pre-pay consumers with credit, services including transport have significantly reduced, clients have encouraged digital payments and consumers increased their average top-up amounts.”

CLICK and COLLECT
CPG businesses are racing to ensure that their supply chain and logistics can keep pace with the explosion in digital transactions, whilst developing eCommerce solutions that are able to support what has been, for some brands, a 300% - 400% increase in direct demand. Offering safe and secure “Click and Collect” is seen by many as the best route to avoid missed or failed deliveries and high logistics costs. For brands that are selling their goods through multiple channels “Click and Collect” now accounts for over a third of their consumers’ delivery choices. But the question we need to ask is – after Covid19 is contained will consumers still be as open to making multiple purchases, across multiple-sites or does the more traditional role of “grocery” begin to make a resurgence?

QUEUEING
So, how does business adapt to the new physical world? As businesses start to “un-furlough” brands through their own estate or their retailers, they have to manage their consumers need, or desire, to shop in a real and communal destination. Stores, banks and other key destinations have been identifying and controlling “tight-points and hotspots” that need to be managed to ensure shoppers and visitors have the ability to remain socially distanced. But queueing for half an hour to buy essentials and the other products just adds to a prevailing sense of frustration, if not desperation. At best it’s inconvenient, at worst it unsettles and unnerves. To overcome these challenges stores are using commerce technology to manage the traffic through their aisles.

So overall the “C” we’re all aiming for is “Convenience”. Get in touch to hear how BORN can help you hit all the “C’s”.