Alongside parcel delivery, we have long offered shop pickup as an option, and now we have updated its terms. Read more below!
The Purpose Of Pickup In Shop
“Pickup in Shop” is a flexible way for customers to pick up their online purchases, and this service is still free of charge.
You can call it a service because it requires us for some orders to add a task to our calendar for a certain time. I have sometimes had to remind customers in our newsletter that I will wait for them in the downstairs lobby until they arrive. Unfortunately, this has often taken about 10 minutes, and at most 15. I have even sent an email saying that I can no longer wait for someone and have taken the package back to the warehouse.
The most wonderful feeling is when a customer waits early downstairs, or alternatively arrives just at the agreed time, and I get to hand the satisfied person their wonderful purchases. After this, the unfinished order is also removed from the list of orders to be processed in the webshop’s admin side and no longer lingers, confusing the statistics of orders to be packaged.
Often customers arrive during our opening hours, which does not require a separate commitment from either party, and the arrival can also take place within a time window of a couple of hours. Win/win!
The Change To Our Terms
So what has changed? From our perspective, this is due to a kind of luxury problem, which is a great situation in itself. The number of orders to be picked up in the shop has recently increased to such an extent that we no longer have the space to store them for a long time.
As a result, orders must now be picked up within two weeks of the order date, either during our opening hours or at a separately agreed time.
To make the process more efficient, it is worth mentioning via the message field at checkout if you plan to collect your order during a specific opening hour or if you would like a specific date and time. You can have for example two or three suggestions. This will significantly streamline the email communication later.
Future Improvement Alternatives To The Pickup In Shop Option
Currently, we do not have a calendar for booking a pickup time at the checkout, but we have already considered that. Finding a suitable time for both parties via email sometimes takes quite a bit of time, so in order to optimise the smoothness, we may install a plugin to make this work easier.
The service may at some point become chargeable, if it continues to be associated with various challenges in a negative sense. Of course, we would not want to remove it completely, as many of our customers do indeed arrive a little early to pick up their order. However, we may do so if this option at the checkout causes too much trouble to work smoothly also for us.
Wrapping Up
We achieve the best workplace satisfaction when things run smoothly. If picking up from the shop feels limited, we have three different delivery companies to choose from: DBSchenker, Matkahuolto and Posti.
With Schenker, you get your package for free if the total amount of the products is 100 € or more, and this option is enjoyed by many people when shipping to Finland.
The only very negative feedback about Schenker came last year around Christmas, when local residents did not properly collect their orders from a pickup point in a smaller town, and because of its fullness, the package went backwards through the logistics chain a couple of times. Our customer was angry about this, as I should have understood to remove Schenker as a delivery option, even though after several calls to find out the reason, it turned out to be a problem caused by the locals.
I didn’t have much to comment on that, but let this serve as a reminder that it really is worth picking up all your orders promptly around Christmas, so that these courier trips back and forth don’t have to happen as often. And picking up from our shop works too! 🙂
Photo: Palapelitaivas, puzzle Reverie, manufacturer Cloudberries.
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