Germany, Austria Retailers Go for BOPIS
Germany and Austria retailers display a balanced market of omnichannel practices, reports OrderDynamics’ Omni-2000 Research: Germany|Austria. Collectively, at 43%, the region falls third behind France (50.5%) and the U.K. (64%) in the number of retailers offering buy online pickup in store (BOPIS) services.
Germany and Austria lead in active inventory visibility when compared to all other countries studied in the Omni-2000 research. While less than 37% of retailers in all countries except France provide inventory visibility to customers, 59% of German and Austrian retailers offer basic stock visibility. The number of omnichannel retailers in Germany and Austria offering buy online return in store (BORIS) also stands out as significantly higher (77.9%) when compared to other countries.
Customer-friendly returns policies are also common practice among these retailers. While the global average for retailers is 76.9%, 94.9% of retailers studied across Germany and Austria provide online returns policies deemed customer-friendly.
In line with a dominance in returns, the region also leads in free returns shipping. Eighty-four percent of regional retailers surveyed offer free returns shipping. The global average in this area is only 30.4%.
Looking to the future, German and Austrian retailers are tasked with developing social selling capabilities to meet emerging consumer needs. While 85% of all retailers in these countries have an Instagram presence, for example, less than 7% currently optimize the social media tool as a selling channel.
Across 200 retail chains with a minimum of 10 store locations, key findings for the German and Austrian retail market include:
- 11.6% of omnichannel retailers commit to having orders within 24 hours
- 84% of all retailers provide free return deliveries
- 10.5% of omnichannel retailers have an optimized mobile commerce site
- 9.3% of omnichannel retailers accept Instagram purchases