Leading Belgian bookstore chain launches same-day delivery from all stores

Starting today, customers of Standaard Boekhandel and Librairie Club in Belgium can have their online orders delivered the same day. The retailer is partnering with the crowdshipping platform Shopopop to make this possible.

Delivered from a nearby store

Standaard Boekhandel Group is the first player in the book industry to partner with the crowdshipping platform Shopopop for same-day delivery. The service is available from launch at 168 Belgian locations: 129 Standaard Boekhandel stores and 39 Librairie Club stores. The delivery option applies to products that can be ordered online and are in stock at the respective store. The order is processed from a nearby store, within a radius of up to 10 kilometers from the delivery address.

Orders for same-day delivery can be placed until 3:45 p.m. During checkout, the customer can choose from five time slots: 10:30 a.m.–12:00 p.m., 12:00 p.m.–2:00 p.m., 2:00 p.m.–4:00 p.m., 4:00 p.m.–6:00 p.m., and 6:00 p.m.–8:00 p.m. A private delivery person then picks up the order at a nearby store and delivers it to the customer’s home.

Extra flexibility

The retailer says it is responding to customers’ growing expectation to receive online orders at home quickly and flexibly. “We’re seeing that customers increasingly expect an online order to fit their schedule, rather than the other way around. With same-day delivery, we’re adding a new, flexible option to our existing offerings. Thanks to our 168 stores, we can also process online orders locally and deliver them quickly to the customer,” says Veerle De Witte, CEO of Standaard Boekhandel Group

Same-day delivery offers extra flexibility when a customer needs something quickly but can’t or doesn’t want to go to the store. Furthermore, the order doesn’t have to be delivered to the customer’s own address: anyone ordering a gift can have it delivered directly to the recipient, with free gift wrapping if desired. During a test phase, customers responded positively to the new delivery option. The service isn’t free: customers pay a flat rate of 5.99 euros, regardless of the order’s value. Click & Collect remains free, while standard home delivery via bpost costs 3.99 euros and is free for orders totaling 30 euros or more.