Curbside pickup is ‘exceptionally sticky’ and will continue post-pandemic: McKinsey retail expert

Back in mid-March, at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Dick’s Sporting Goods launched a curbside pickup option at most of its U.S. stores: order an item online or from your phone, pick it up outside your nearest Dick’s store. (Across retail, the curbside option is also being called BOPIS: Buy online and pick up in store.)

Curbside was hugely popular and helped drive Dick’s to a record Q2. Consider this stat: 75% of Dick’s online orders in Q2 were fulfilled by stores (either shipped to a customer from their nearest store or picked up curbside, rather than shipped from a warehouse). Now, even after Dick’s reopened its stores to in-store shoppers (masks on) in June, curbside continues to thrive. “We anticipated originally that we would see a large drop-off when the stores reopened,” Dick’s president Lauren Hobart said on the earnings call, “but that is not the case.” Dick’s CEO Ed Stack declared: “It started off as a safety piece. People wanted it because they didn’t want to come in contact with anyone else. It’s now becoming a convenience piece.”

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