In a bold industry move, Cash Crusaders – leaders in second hand, quality new goods and secure loans, has built and launched Click & Collect – the first instalment in taking their retail business online.
“Although we’ve been planning the launch of e-commerce for our business for a while, COVID-19 rapidly increased the rate in which we rolled the service out,” says Sean Stegmann, CEO of Cash Crusaders Franchising.
“As discussed in our recent 702’s Franchising for Future Success webinar, with shopper behaviours changing somewhat, the timing was perfect for us to aggressively embrace our digitisation strategy. We started with our WhatsApp Video service back in June and have gone live with our Click & Collect service.”
What makes Cash Crusaders online shopping portal unique is that it caters for both their private label new goods as well as second-hand goods and works off a live real-time system. As soon as a second-hand item is sold either instore or online, that item is no longer available for sale, hence eliminating disappointment from customers who see an item online and want to purchase.
At each step of the phased approach, the Cash Crusaders team was proactively looking at which process was working best for the customer to ensure that not only did the customer experience form part of the launch process but that stores familiarised themselves with online customer expectations and ensured these were being met throughout the online purchasing process.
“We’ve been very cognisant of how an online shopping channel – especially for our business could present some complexities, so have identified Online Personal Shoppers in every one of our South African stores to ensure a seamless and efficient online shopping experience,” adds Sean
Customers who shop online will be prompted at check out to select where they’d prefer to collect their goods from, and will have immediate access to that store’s WhatsApp number to be able to converse with the Online Personal Shopper located in that store.
“A real highlight of our e-commerce evolution is that customers are also now able to renew their secure loans online too. We have integrated our entire bespoke POS (point of sale) system to be able to fulfil our customer’s e-commerce requirements at the click of a button,” concludes Sean.
