CIO.com: Cognizant’s Senior Vice-President of Retail Consulting Says Tackling BOPIS Fulfillment Failures is an Important Resolution Retail CIOs Should Keep in 2016

Retailers are working hard to consistently deliver a seamless experience both online and offline, across channels and devices—to avoid eroding their brand presence—but have run up against stubborn challenges, says Steven Skinner.

“If CIOs thought this Christmas was online on steroids, wait until 2016,” he says, pointing out that this was the first year that shoppers spent more online than in store on Black Friday. At the same time, he says, holiday 2015 found brick-and-mortar stores overwhelmed and often unable to recover inventory levels after Black Friday. “The stores were distressed—the online experience has actually become more predictable,” he says.

CIO.com notes that more and more customers expect that their favorite retailer will offer BOPIS, or the option to buy online and pick up in the store.” But according to Cognizant’s 2015 Shopper Experience Study, 60 percent of shoppers reported some sort of service failure when picking up their BOPIS purchase, says Skinner.

“This is a glaring issue that should be on the list for every CIO to check once and check twice going into Christmas 2016,” he says. Issues can range from store associates that pick out the wrong color to delivering to the store on time. “There are a whole host of process, inventory and supply chain management issues that go into the creation of a world-class BOPIS model,” he says.

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