To provide another option for customers to receive their orders, Amazon has added an option for consumers to walk into a store and pick up a package. The new Counter option is said to roll out with the help of Rite Aid Corp bringing the offering to 100 locations, Reuters reported.
“Overall, we want to give every Amazon customer the option of an alternative delivery location,” Amazon Hub World Director Patrick Supanc said, according to the report. “This will become an extensive network.”
The option is said to come at no additional cost and will be compatible with shipping options that already exist, like same-day service. With the pickup offering, consumers receive email notifications when packages come to a store. When consumers enter the stores, they show employees barcodes. Those workers, in turn, scan the code, locate the parcels and give them to the consumers.
Jocelyn Konrad, a Rite Aid executive, said in a statement per reports that the offering in addition to the eCommerce retailer’s Rite Aid store lockers make “a stronger in-store experience for existing customers and new customers that come in to pick up their packages.” However, according to the report, Supanc said the two firms were “not sharing any retail data with each other.”
The news comes as Amazon is rolling out a click-and-collect option for shoppers to pick up their packages from staffed counters at British and Italian merchants. The eCommerce retailer is teaming up with Next Plc, and has forged similar partnerships with Giunti as well as other merchants in Italy. The offering is called Amazon Counter.
Supanc said in May per reports, “There is a strong tradition of click-and-collect in both the U.K. and Italy, and the plan is to roll Counter out further across Europe.” Supanc continued, “Next really understands click-and-collect.” Shares in Next increased by as much as 1 percent on the news in London at the time.