As the holiday season enters its final weeks, Best Buy is expanding its last-mile fulfillment options to capitalize on the shift towards online. Enhancements include extended hours for contactless curbside pickup at most store locations, in addition to same-day and next-day delivery through its intermediary partners Shipt, Roadie and more recently, Instacart.
To further support continued momentum online, Best Buy is also using store employees to deliver online orders over the holiday season, as well as ramping up its ship-from-store model - the latter of which is fast becoming a core component of its evolving omnichannel fulfillment strategy, with the retailer piloting 250 ship-from-store hub locations in September, and now adding 90 more locations for the holiday period.
As Best Buy transitions its stores towards primary fulfillment hubs, suppliers can expect in-store ranges and assortments to evolve. Notably, Best Buy is already testing four new formats in Minneapolis which have a reduced shop-able square footage of 15,000 sq. ft., almost half the 27,000 sq. ft. average. As more emphasis is placed on in-store pickup and ship-from-store transactions, the relevance of online sales and conversion metrics is amplified for brands, requiring strong online execution, sufficient availability and relevant assortments.
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