120 Days of Retail: Day 53 - How Airport Retailers are Using Click-and-Collect to Attract More Shoppers

If you've traveled anywhere in the last two decades then you'll be familiar with the Duty Free store. What you may not know is that this chain is actually owned by the LVMH, the luxury brand behind Louis Vuitton and headed by the richest person in the world, Bernard Arnault.

Duty Free and other airport and travel retailers are placing a big bet on buy online pickup in-store aka click-and-collect, aka reserve-and-collect (in the UK) as a way to show travelers their inventory and get them interested and through checkout quickly on their way to their next flight.

"World Duty Free offers travelers the ability to shop online to reserve their purchase anywhere from 24 hours to 30 days before departure", according to Forbes magazine. "The next wave of luxury expansion will come through the digitization of travel retail."

Arnault and LVMH have long been a critics of digitization in general, and their executives have made statements stating that online shopping is merely “a complement to the physical experience”. Perhaps this is unsurprising given self-descriptions of their stores comparing retail stores to art.

But this recent move towards click-and-collect in the airport and travel world, especially for World Duty-Free represents something of a turn in that thinking. Online omnichannel may just be a compliment to retail- but it is becoming more and more a crucial compliment as more stores adopt groundbreaking technology solutions to show shoppers their inventory ahead of time.

ListIt is the Buy Online Pickup In-Store solution for local retailers. It’s free and takes only seconds to upload your first product. Reach out to me directly at james@listit.one