By Toby Phimister and Jamie Sawyer

In 2020, brands across industries were forced to adapt to extraordinary circumstances and find new ways to keep their customers safe while attempting to maintain profitability. This challenge was unprecedented and required many brands to significantly shift their technology roadmap to focus on maximizing off-premise growth. This focus became even more important as the year went on and consumers became increasingly reliant on off-premise options, in order to get their items quickly and safely.

2020 was an inflection point for curbside pickup and BOPIS, and there is no sign that consumers will return to the way that they used to shop. In fact, over 59% say that they will continue or increase their usage of curbside moving forward now that they have experienced the convenience that it brings. Over the past 12 months, Flybuy Pickup has made huge leaps forward and we are confident that our technology will continue to revolutionize curbside pickup and BOPIS in 2021.

Feature Releases

It was a busy year for Flybuy Pickup, as we helped grocers, retailers, and restaurants around the world conduct enhanced curbside pickup operations. Here are a few highlights from the year.

Delivery Tracking 

Flybuy now provides delivery orchestration and management to partners that offer same-day delivery via delivery providers. Staff members can now also track delivery couriers via the Flybuy staff dashboard, which drastically improves order fulfillment operations and results in same day delivery orders being delivered in record time! This is an add-on feature to Flybuy Pickup for integrated partners.

Flybuy Nearby

To enable higher visibility for brands and encourage customer retention within the Flybuy experience, we now provide our Flybuy customers with a list of stores that are in close proximity to them when they engage with the Flybuy app. Customers can proceed to the store’s dedicated online ordering site to place an order.

Flybuy Dashboard Tablet with LED Indicators

We have taken the Flybuy staff dashboard to the next level, now offering the Flybuy Dashboard Tablet, which is a capacitive, multi-touch tablet with integrated LED light bars that is specially designed for use with Flybuy products. The Flybuy Dashboard Tablet can update and alert your staff so that they are fully prepared to assist customers as they arrive at your locations, ensuring a fast and efficient experience – all in one place!

The Flybuy Dashboard Tablet comes with all necessary software pre-installed, and is enabled through a secure activation process.

Flybuy Staff App for Android and iOS with Mobile Device Management support

To accommodate all access points to the Flybuy staff dashboard, we launched an app version for Android and iOS devices. Partners who prefer for their staff to use handheld devices, have access to all of the features that the standard staff dashboard has if accessed via a web browser along with added notification capabilities. Additionally, Flybuy now supports various Mobile Device Management provider workflows for distribution, giving partners peace of mind when integrated with Flybuy.  

Enhanced Customer Messaging Capabilities Throughout Customer Journey

Partners are able to configure notifications for their customers on a project and/or site level, which are triggered based on Flybuy’s extensive customer and order state machine. Custom notifications can be sent via SMS, WhatsApp, and push notifications to varying degrees throughout the entire customer journey, assuring that customers have the best pickup experience with the partner.

Flybuy Notify

As a part of our extensive mobile SDK, we offer the option to integrate Flybuy Notify, which provides geo-triggered notifications to Flybuy app users upon entering a localized region. This provides increased visibility for our partners, who are able to market to potential Flybuy customers in the area.

App Reviews

The Flybuy Pickup mobile app gives brands the flexibility of launching curbside and BOPIS quickly without waiting on mobile development.  The Flybuy Pickup app has received incredible ratings and reviews from users on all platforms. On the Android store, our app has 4.9 stars with 2800+ ratings and is the #59 shopping app. On the iOS app store, our app has 5.0 stars with 11,200+ ratings and we are in the top 200 shopping apps.

Users make it clear that they love the Flybuy Pickup app:

“Flybuy is pure genius! Tracks and notifies the vendor of the customer’s arrival for curbside pick up. Worked like a charm!”

“I was really impressed with how well it worked! Received my order promptly upon arrival. Almost no waiting!!”

“This is a great app! Super easy to use. There was an associate waiting at the curbside to deliver my purchase.”

“From start to finish, this app worked perfectly! Couldn’t ask for more. MUCH better process than before where you had to call in when you got there and then wait for 5-10 minutes.”

New Partners

In 2020 we were able to onboard many exciting new partners to the Flybuy platform. In the restaurant vertical, we are thrilled to be working with Five Guys, El Pollo Loco, Hooters, City Barbecue, Tropical Smoothie Cafe, IHOP, Applebee’s, Newk’s Eatery, Mendocino Farms and many more. In the grocery vertical, we are so excited to be working with United Supermarkets, Lowe’s Foods, SpartanNash, Giant Eagle, and more. Lastly, in our retail vertical, we are helping revolutionize off-premise operations at Belk, Vineyard Vines, JOANN Stores, and more.

These brands are seeing wait times reduced to under 2 minutes, revenue growth significantly increased through improved employee efficiency and larger cart sizes, and customer satisfaction levels raised through the seamless order pickup experience that Flybuy provides.

To learn more about the power of Flybuy Pickup, check out the video we recently produced with our grocery partner, Lowe’s Foods. 

Looking ahead to 2021

2020 was a busy year for the Flybuy team as we continually enhanced our technology with exciting new feature releases, further improved our exceptionally well-rated iOS and Android apps, and brought on exciting new partners around the world. As we start the new year, we are excited to keep refining and building upon our platform to ensure that we remain the industry leader in location-based off-premise technology.

If you’re interested in transforming curbside operations at your stores, please check out the Flybuy Pickup page on our website and request a demo to speak to a member of our team.