More than two-thirds of shoppers are buying online for the first time and more than half are spending more online.

Consumers are buying products online and picking them up in stores at more than four times greater volume than prior to the pandemic, according to new research from ecommerce platform provider Kibo Commerce. At the growth peaked in April, when shoppers picked up online orders at stores six times more frequently than in April 2019.

Buy online pick up in store purchases increased 554% in May, with total online orders up 194%, an analysis of 260 Kibo clients shows. Of orders placed online in May, 47.5% were picked up at stores. Orders placed online for store pickup peaked in May with nearly 900,000 purchases, according to Kibo’s findings.

However, the largest increase for pickups came in April as restrictions were put in place for retail stores across the country. April drew a 563% year-over-year increase in BOPIS orders. Total online orders were up 193%, with BOPIS generating 43.6% of order volume for Kibo’s analyzed clients.

BOPIS orders came as consumers settled into new routines, with BOPIS orders growing slower at the start of the pandemic. Pickup orders from March 16 to March 31 rose just 191% year over year, making up just 24.7% of total online purchases for the period. Total online orders rose 110% in May, according to Kibo.

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In June, many U.S. municipalities have re-opened in some capacity, including some retail stores opening with limited capacity. With that, BOPIS has slowed from its April and May peaks, and pickup orders were up just 375% through June 11 over the same period last year. Kibo finds BOPIS penetration of all online sales hit 41.7% for that period.

For the entire period between March 16 and June 11, BOPIS orders rose 367.2%, topping 2 million orders picked up from stores so far for the 260 clients looked at by Kibo.

The coronavirus pandemic has also forced some shoppers to purchase products online they hadn’t considered before. According to a 2,000 consumer study commissioned by ecommerce services provider PFSweb, 63% of U.S. shoppers bought goods online that they hadn’t previously considered for purchase online. This  rose to 75% for millennial shoppers.

Despite an increase in volume, consumers want their orders fast, as 71% of U.S. shoppers expect delivery within a week after ordering, according to PFSweb’s results. That is with consumers buying more online, as 55% of U.S. consumers say they have made more purchases through the web during the pandemic, according to the study.

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