Shoppers at Holland & Barrett can now build their shopping basket while they queue outside the store – only entering the shop to pay and pick up their pre-packed order.
Holland & Barrett is working with Mercaux to provide the new ’store-side ordering through the queue’ service, which is one of a range of new services supported by its technology. Customers queuing outside busier branches of the health and wellbeing store, where numbers that can enter are currently limited as as result of Covid-19 restrictions, can use the Mercaux app, handed to them on a tablet by a member of staff, to browse for products, ask for information, and create a basket. The basket is then transferred to staff inside the shop they are queuing at. When the customer enters the shops they only need to pay and pick up items that a member of staff has already put into a bag for them.
Assisted sales and omnichannel services also include tablets that staff can use to call up an endless aisle of products for customers they are advising in-store. Staff can go through an pre-loaded interview process to find out what products are best for the customers’ needs, recommending products available in that store, from another store or online.
The services have already been trialled and are now being extended to further stores.
Darsh Chand, head of change and continuous improvement at Holland & Barrett, said: “We initially launched with Mercaux in our new concept store in Chelmsford, Essex, which acts as a live hub to test innovative customer concepts. Both customer and colleague feedback on these new solutions has been positive, and serves us well in our mission to make wellness accessible for all. We are now working on the roll-out of the technology to nine additional stores in September we look forward to seeing the results in a wider selection of stores”.
Olga Kotsur, co-founder and chief executive of Mercaux, said: “It’s imperative that retailers act now to meet the heightened expectations of customers returning to stores. Holland & Barrett has shown, through the launch of their Chelmsford concept store, the power that digitisation can bring to exceeding these expectations and prevent potential lost sales. We very much look forward to supporting them to extend this vision out to their entire estate.”
Mercaux also works with clients including Nike, French Connection and Benetton.
Holland & Barrett is part of the Letter One Retail Group (L1 Retail), which sells online and via 1,600 shops around the world, including more than 800 in the UK and Ireland. It is ranked Top50 in RXUK Top500 research.
