Grocery pickup is here to stay. Here's how it's evolving / Media mention

After seeing grocery pickup orders boom during the pandemic, grocers are focusing on the future of the service and where to invest in the spectrum of pickup options.

According to a Brick Meets Click survey, shoppers have been preferring pickup over delivery during the pandemic, with 54% of sales coming through click-and-collect in June. The survey also found that 18% of active users that have made at least one online grocery order in the past month, exclusively use a pickup service. 

Cleveron, which teamed up with Walmart on its in-store Pickup Towers, works with grocers to offer pickup lockers with temperature-controlled zones for hot and cold groceries that shoppers can access via QR codes or PIN codes.

“I think the big shift has gone from the fact that, ‘Do we need click-and-collect?’ to the actual question, ‘Oh, I really need click-and-collect, but what kind of solution?’” Edith Väli, marketing manager for Cleveron.

Cleveron’s grocery robot aims to be an outdoor solution that can solve last-mile challenges, Väli said. “You can put these units anywhere — next to office buildings, in rural areas where you don't have a store so you basically expand your business by just putting in one unit,” she said, noting that she envisions the U.S. having an open network of lockers where couriers can store parcels from multiple vendors.

Original Grocery Dive article published on October 26.

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