Target, Walmart, and other big retailers will be competing with this year’s Amazon Prime Day.
Best Buy and Walmart, hugely popular retailers, have planned their deals and offers to go head-to-head with Amazon’s Prime Day.
This year’s Prime Day starts at 3 a.m. ET Tuesday and ends Wednesday. To compete, Target will be launching “Deal Days,” and Best Buy will be holding its Black Friday sales simultaneously. Moreover, Walmart has already started its “Big Save Event” from 7 p.m. ET Sunday until Thursday.
Due to the coronavirus outbreak, online shopping, and pick-up (curbside and in-store) have been hugely popular because of convenience and safety. Retailer Best Buy started offering its customers the option to do curbside pick-ups earlier this year.
On the other hand, Walmart has also started to make its general merchandise available for curbside pick-up in the last six months. Additionally, the retail giant has also made a wide array of its grocery offerings for the same service.
Meanwhile, another retailer, Target, is set to launch its curbside pick-up for fresh and frozen food offerings.
According to CNBC, Target’s sales have significantly increased due to the curbside pick-up services the retail company has rolled out. Drive-Up, Target’s curbside pick-up service, has increased by at least 700%, and Order Pickup, its in-store pick-up service, has grown by more than 60%.
According to Target CEO Brian Cornell, their April orders have delivered more items and purchases than their Cyber Monday last 2019. He also added that the services had enticed more customers.
Meanwhile, Best Buy’s curbside pick-up service also increased the retailer’s online revenue by about 242%. Walmart has also added slots for its curbside pick-up service and expanded its item offerings to at least 160,000 items.
While some people deem curbside pick-up services to be convenient, some customers aren’t convinced. According to an Accenture survey, about 77% of shoppers prefer that their orders be delivered to their homes. Out of 1,500 U.S. consumers who took the survey, only 11% are open to using contactless options.
“You think of the holiday parking lot of years gone by. There was never a pretty moment in any of that… I can’t try to imagine a holiday parking lot now, where we’re trying to limit the people who actually can go in the store, so there’s a line again outside in the wintertime, and we’re trying to jam people through a parking lot when it’s snowing or raining or sleeting.”
Kathy Gramling, consumer industry markets leader for EY in the Americas
According to Gramling, the customer’s interest in curbside pick-up services will eventually wear thin if customers continue to keep up with long waits or cope with other customer service dilemmas.
“It works well if — and only if —as a retailer you’re able to know that store number 115 or on Main Street, somewhere in the U.S., has that actual stock. Otherwise, I think we’re in for a series of really disappointing shopper moments when consumers go online and then can’t pick up in-store.”
Kathy Gramling
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