The pickup logistics of tomorrow?

Pick up furniture at the Ikea drive-in counter

Who hasn't experienced this? You're driving, hunger is setting in, and on a whim, you pull into one of the big fast-food chains, order a burger meal at the drive-thru, and a few meters later, your overflowing bag is handed to you through the open window. How convenient would it be to be able to do the same for bulkier items like furniture or hardware?

After the first drive-ins appeared in Germany in the 1950s in the form of drive-in cinemas, it wasn't until well into the 1980s that McDonald's opened its first drive-in in Berlin to sell its burgers. Since then, drive-ins have enjoyed an impressive rise in popularity in Germany, and their success has meant that these convenient windows are no longer used exclusively by fast-food restaurants.

Supermarket chains like Rewe, Metro , and Real, testing the in-store pickup of items purchased online. This proactive approach by retailers is well-founded, as online giant Amazon already established a strong presence in the US with its Fresh grocery program and associated pickup stations. Observers therefore see the grocery sector as one of the most important areas of application for Click & Collect and other pickup solutions, where customers load their goods into their cars in a drive-through manner.

So far, the focus has been on handy items – what about furniture and bulky goods?

But it doesn't have to be just everyday items. Many people who have to push their way through a crowded DIY store on a Saturday or their bulky shopping cart through one of the large furniture stores have surely wished at some point that they could conveniently pick up their pre-ordered goods at a pickup station of such a store, instead of having to plunge into the weekend hustle and bustle.

Everyone knows them: the enormous high-bay warehouses of furniture stores like Ikea and others, where all those Billy, Raka, and Kalla cabinets are stored before shoppers heave them onto their shopping carts. Automated vertical carousel storage systems are ideally suited for storing such large and heavy goods. Their compact dimensions allow them to be optimally integrated into limited spaces and extend to heights of ten meters or more. Why shouldn't such a storage lift be integrated into the entrance area or even directly into the store's parking garage? Consumers could save themselves the lengthy trek through the hardware or furniture store and pick up their desired item directly. But customers of Ikea and its competitors will have to wait a while, as none of the companies have yet shown any intention of setting up such pick-up stations. No wonder, since the furniture stores profit immensely from the many impulse purchases made by their customers, who pass countless tempting offers on their way to the checkout.

Although the same applies to DIY stores, they are already further ahead. Especially when it comes to picking up heavy goods such as tiles or building materials, a pickup station makes perfect sense. Large players like Hornbach and Bauhaus have already responded in this regard, offering consumers some stores with integrated drive-through areas.

From vision to reality: Walmart lets customers pick up their purchases from a shuttle

Whether it's furniture or groceries, compared to shipping, the pickup system has the advantage that, although the customer has to make a detour and collect the goods themselves, they can freely choose the pickup time and save on the sometimes hefty shipping costs. Given the wide geographical coverage of supermarket chains in Germany, the extra trip shouldn't be a major issue for most customers. Technically, such a solution is now easily feasible thanks to state-of-the-art warehouse systems, some of which can even accommodate refrigerated goods.

How this pickup of purchased goods can work in practice is demonstrated by the US retail giant Walmart. The company has begun installing "Pickup Towers" in its US stores, from which customers can collect their online purchases. These pickup stations, similar in size to warehouse shuttles, are now located in the entrance areas of 200 stores, with another 500 units planned by the end of 2018.

Storage systems like the tower used by Walmart have the advantage of being able to securely store a very large number of diverse items on a relatively small footprint and retrieve them extremely quickly when needed. These systems also maintain the required accuracy when retrieving purchases, with a picking precision of nearly 100 percent.

After purchase, customers receive an email with a barcode, which is scanned at the tower. The goods are then ready for pickup in under a minute. To also be able to sell larger items like televisions this way, the devices are now equipped with additional lockable boxes. Walmart is very pleased with customer acceptance, as over 500,000 orders have already been placed via the towers. It remains to be seen whether and when Ikea and other similar retailers will be persuaded to adopt such a solution. They would certainly have the gratitude of their customers.