Chargebacks911® COO Comments on “BOPUS” Options for Ozy.com
Monica Eaton spoke with Molly Fosco of news outlet Ozy.com about the latest big-box challenge to Amazon’s online dominance: the buy-online, pick up in-store model.
Buy-online, pick up in-store—BOPUS, as it’s increasingly described—is a similar concept to mobile ordering at restaurants. Customers can pick out their items and check out online via a mobile device, then swing by a physical store later to pick up their goods. While BOPUS is still just catching on, it could provide the edge that big box stores like Walmart and Target are looking for in their quest to compete with Amazon.
As mentioned in the piece, more than 90% of retailers are expected to offer BOPUS services by 2021. It’s a great concept; BOPUS allows retailers to leverage their key advantage over online retailers: their brick-and-mortar stores. However, it’s not a perfect situation. As Monica points out, “BOPUS creates a lot of loopholes for fraud.”
Retailers want to make the most of this new business model, but there will be kinks to iron out. If done in a haphazard manner, BOPUS could prove to be more of a liability than a boon to sales.