Why Use Local Pickup in WooCommerce

In this day and age, almost everyone you see is doing business online. E-commerce sets new records daily, and more people are trying to come online to build their brand. As WooCommerce is the most used and extensively supported e-commerce platform on WordPress, its number of users is increasing daily.

With the demand for e-commerce rising, store owners, including you, are flocking to WooCommerce to bring their businesses online. With such high demand, shipping becomes a key part of the chain.

Then why use local pickup — a method where the customer comes to your store’s physical location to pick up his orders rather than have them shipped to his home — you may ask?

In this post, we will address exactly that: why use a local pickup, why it is excellent for your customers, and how to set it up at your WooCommerce store. Read on!

What is Local Pickup as a shipping method in WooCommerce

Local Pickup is a shipping method offered in WooCommerce where customers, instead of having their orders shipped to their homes, come to your physical store and pick them up. This allows them to inspect their order, browse your offerings, and interact with your staff.

Customers might pick something that they like while browsing your store, and if they are happy with your service, they might suggest your store to their friends or family, potentially driving more footfall to your store and nudging your sales figures forward.

And at their chosen time, instead of waiting days for items to be delivered.

Plus, they do not have to deal with complex issues at checkout, where several studies have shown that most cart abandonment happens.

Reasons Why you Should Use Local Pickup in WooCommerce

There are several reasons for offering local pickup at your WooCommerce store. Below we discuss them one by one in detail. Here it goes:

1. For WooCommerce store owners:

• Saves on costs: Shipping, shipping-related insurance, packaging, and returns are major parts of a store’s running costs. Offering local pickup cuts down on all of this, like not paying a shipping company and avoiding returns since customers inspect their product prior to pickup.
• More footfall: In-person pickup means more customers coming to your store, thus more chances of customers picking additional products while browsing your product lines.
• Word-of-Mouth Marketing: You can show your new and exciting product lines, apart from leaving a lasting impression on the customers. If they are happy with the behavior and helpfulness of your staff, chances of them recommending your store to their friends and family go up a notch.
• Better management of store inventory: Managing stocks of items and products across your various stores gets easier with local pickup, greatly simplifying the administration process and thus avoiding errors like overstocking or stockouts.
• More environment-friendly: By reducing the need for materials for packaging and vehicle emissions, you minimize your stores’ carbon footprint. This could be particularly lucrative for eco-conscious consumers.

2. For your customers:

• Cheaper products: Since you are not adding shipping costs, the product becomes more affordable, making it accessible to even larger sections of society.
• Quick Access: With local pickup, customers can receive their products quickly once they are prepared, often on the same day, unlike traditional online orders that require days for delivery.
• Pickup at your times: Busy at the office and unavailable when the delivery reaches home? No worries, with local pickup, busy customers with hectic schedules can pick and choose the place and time they are most convenient with.
• Reduced Wait Times: Customers can enjoy a more efficient shopping experience without waiting for a delivery.
• Minimize chances of damage during transit: Products might get damaged while in transit, prompting a return. Local pickup ensures that customers pick up their order in perfect condition.

How to know whether your store is suitable for local pickup

Confused about whether your store is ideal for local pickup. Go no further; here we give a list of some stores that are well-tailored for local pickup:

• Furniture and Home Goods Stores: Large and bulky items like furniture, beds, tables, and cupboards are well-suited for local pickup. By picking these up, customers can avoid high shipping costs and reduce the chances of damage while in transit.
• Bakeries and Pastry shops: Freshly baked goods and made-to-order items like cakes and pastries are best when consumed fresh from the oven. Letting your customers pick the orders directly is the best way for such stores.
• Grocery Stores: Grocery stores often mix durable and non-durable goods. Non-durable goods like fresh fruits, vegetables, and cheese are suitable for local pickup while durable items like packaged food are good for shipping.
• Lifestyle clothing and footwear shops: Stores that sell clothing and footwear are another type of store suited for local pickup. Customers can come, try out the clothes, see if they fit their body type, and pick them up. This will reduce the possibility of return.
• Art Galleries: Art galleries usually have fragile items like designer vases or mirrors that could break while shipping. Their shipping costs are also high due to higher insurance. Therefore, customers taking these delicate items home is the best way for such stores.

How to enable Local Pickup in WooCommerce

Enabling local pickup is simple. Just follow the below steps. First, install Dotstore’s Local Pickup plugin from your WordPress Dashboard.

1. Install Dotstore’s Local Pickup Plugin:

• On your WordPress Dashboard, navigate to Plugins and click on Add New.
• Search for Dotstore’s Local Pickup plugin.
• Install and activate the plugin.

2. Enable Local Pickup

• Go to Dotstore Plugins → Global Settings → Enable Shipping and turn on the toggle.

• In the Cart & Checkout Settings, go to “Choosing Locations” settings, and select “Allow Customers to choose location per product” from the dropdown menu.

• From the “Pickup Appointments Settings”, select the hours your store will be available for local pickup by sliding the slider.

• From the “Default Holiday Dates” setting, select the date at which your store will be closed for local pickup.

• Scroll down and click on “Save changes” to save the changes.

3. Add address of your store

This is where we add the physical address of your store where you want your customers to pick up their orders.

• From the WordPress Dashboard, go to Dotstore Plugins → Pickup Locations → Add New.

• Type the address and contact information of your store.

• Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on “Update Location”.

• You have now successfully set up your WooCommerce store for local pickup.

What your Customers will see on the Checkout page

• Let’s see what your customers will see when they order any product at the Checkout Page. You can see that the product is enabled for local pickup.

• If the customer changes his mind and wants the products to be shipped to his home, he can do so by selecting “​​Click here to ship this item.”

• Customers can add their shipping address, complete the payment, and order their products.

Dotstore’s Local Pickup Plugin

Although WooCommerce is free to use and has various functionalities, it does not offer extensive customization of the checkout page. Therefore, you are limited to basic features that restrict you from giving various advanced shipping options to your customers.

That is why we recommend Dotstore’s Local Pickup plugin. It has multiple features on top of WooCommerce’s relatively limited feature stack. Some of them are listed below:

Key features:

• Multiple Pickup Locations: This feature allows customers to pick up from multiple locations at checkout.
• Local Pickup Appointments: Customers can select a specific time of day for pickup, which makes it more convenient.
• Public Holidays Selection: Configure pickup availability around public holidays to make sure that the customer do not order on the days the store is closed.
• Pickup Options by Product: You can specify shipping instructions for various product categories. For example, you may want only local pickup for heavy and oversized products, free shipping for local deliveries, and paid shipping for out-of-town orders.
• Bulk Import / Export Pickup Store Locations: Easily manage pickup locations with bulk import/export function.

Conclusion

In this post, we learned the basics of Local Pickup, from understanding what local pickup entails to discussing its benefits and identifying which types of stores can maximize its advantages. We’ve also walked you through the steps to enable local pickup in your WooCommerce store and introduced you to Dotstore’s Local Pickup Plugin.

We suggest that you try out Dotstore’s Local Pickup Plugin. It is completely free for the first 14 days, so you can see if it fits within your WooCommerce store.

FAQ

Can I offer both local pickup and shipping in WooCommerce?

Yes, you can offer both local pickup and shipping in WooCommerce. Just enable Dotstore’s Local Pickup plugin, and this option is enabled by default.

Can I give a discount for all pickup locations?

Yes, you can do this using our global setting called “Fee adjustment“. You can select the discount amount you want to offer your customers for all pickup locations. Additionally, you can override this setting by assigning fee adjustments for specific pickup locations.

How do pickup locations work?

When customers check out from your WooCommerce store, they can select a nearby pickup location on the checkout page to pick up their order. When the order is ready for pickup, your store notifies the customers. They can then come to the selected location, show the order confirmation, and collect their orders. They can also choose from multiple if you have set up these multiple outlets for local pickup in WooCommerce. You can learn more about it by clicking here.

How do I select Delivery Location in WooCommerce?

Customers can select their delivery location during checkout by selecting from the available locations through the dropdown menu.

Can I set a pickup location date after a few days to prepare my product?

Absolutely! You can do this by using the “Lead time” option in our plugin’s global settings. This allows you to set the start date for pickup of your parcel or product from the pickup locations. You can also customize this setting for specific pickup locations if needed.