Native Shopify buy online, pickup in store

Update May 2020: It’s here and available.

During 2019’s Shopify Unite there was a new feature that snuck past most people during the POS keynote which I’ve been waiting for natively for ages.

It was as this article’s title suggests “Buy online pickup in store” and was very lightly teased with some screengrabs on the screen behind Arpan.

In store pickup is coming to the Shopify checkout

As you can just about make out about, within the typical Shopify checkout, you now have tabs for “Ship” and “Pick up” with the pick up tab showing a list of locations along with possibly a search field above it.

There was then a tie in to the POS app, which will enable staff at locations to see and fulfil orders from the app.

This all rolls out with the brand new POS app, which I’ve been told is either coming Q4 2019 or Q1 2020.

Why this is a big deal

Some of you might say well this is something that could already be achieved with an app, and you are right, however none of the apps were up to scratch in my opinion.

1. Often very expensive and tied to a wider Click and Collect network.
2. The integration with the checkout wasn’t great, often relying on JS on the cart page or cart drawer. Meaning that if you wanted to direct customers straight into the checkout flow, they would skip the option.
3. Shoe horning one of your store’s address into the delivery address field, always felt like a hack which will pollute any future reporting on where people ship products to.
4. Issues with a free “in store pickup” delivery option appearing when customers used express checkouts like Apple Pay (where cheapest shipping is selected by default) or PayPal, which either caused confusion or customers getting free shipping when they shouldn’t.

Whilst this might turn out to be another hook to get merchants to use both POS from Shopify, it’s likely to be a much better experience for customers and staff than the current options for this feature.

Interesting to hear other merchants opinions on this or experiences with existing apps.

You might also enjoy these two Shopify articles:
• Tracking Shopify Abandoned Carts
• Shopify GA tracking: Size Guides