Halfords has passed the one million mark for purchases made through its Reserve and Collect service, which was developed and delivered by systems integrator Salmon in 2008.
“The benefits of Reserve and Collect are plain,” says Jon Asbury, channel development manager for Halfords. “The channel is a powerful tool in driving incremental sales and one we will continue to develop with Salmon over the next few months.”
“We believe it offers customers what they want: Choice!,” he added. “It allows customers to do their research online and secure items for collection in store. Many of our customers don’t want to wait at home for a delivery, or pay delivery charges. By checking stock on line and reserving in store they avoid the disappointment of turning up to a store to find the item is out of stock. It also caters for those last minute buyers who don’t have 24 hours to wait for an item to be delivered.”
Neil Stewart, commercial director for Salmon, explained that “The proposition is working well for our customers where ‘Reserve and Collect’ is responsible for driving significant numbers of offline sales, and increasing multi-channel revenues. There is the challenge of ensuring online and offline channels are integrated, ensuring stock levels are kept up to date, but our customers have found the results far outweigh the investment and effort.”