Transport hubs are increasingly important for fulfilment strategies at retailers including John Lewis and Asda, as they seek to make the last mile cheaper.

John Lewis’s new store in St Pancras station is a first for the retailer, but it isn’t just seeking to tap into growing retail sales at transport hubs – its click-and-collect offer is a key part of both its delivery strategy and its plans for growth.

John Lewis’s new store in St Pancras station is a first for the retailer, but it isn’t just seeking to tap into growing retail sales at transport hubs – its click-and-collect offer is a key part of both its delivery strategy and its plans for growth.

Retailers are working hard to make shopping easier for customers by overhauling their delivery services, and growing numbers are taking advantage of the 1.6 billion annual passenger rail journeys in a bid to deliver packages into customers’ hands.

Click-and-collect stores in transport hubs are a relatively new development in retail – Asda pioneered a scheme last year in London Underground stations. Since then, other retailers including Waitrose and Tesco have signed up to open online collection points in London stations.

As one of the first general merchandise retailers to open a click-and-collect store in a railway station, John Lewis indicates a new stage in the trend.

The department store group’s director of selling, Maggie Porteous, said: “Our customers show us they want different ways to shop that are most convenient for them. John Lewis St Pancras is our latest shop format innovation to meet our customers’ evolving needs”.

Saeed Anslow, Asda’s senior director of ecommerce development, says stores and click-and-collect points in transport hubs offer customers flexibility in how they shop.

“Customers are increasingly looking for more ways to shop. It’s about being able to offer them as much choice as possible,” he says.

It is a strategy that is paying off. Asda has reported that customers using its Transport for London service shopped twice as often as those using other Asda click-and-collect points last year, as well as spending 16% more per shop in 2014.

It’s not just commuters who are using the retail offer in transport hubs. “A third of customers using the service are residents who live close to London Underground stations,” says Asda chief operating officer Mark Ibbotson. It is likely that John Lewis’s St Pancras store will repeat this trend, because 25% of weekly visitors come to St Pancras station for reasons other than travel.

Railway pick-up hub Doddle is one of a variety of services to have entered the market in the past couple of years. The company provides collection points at transport locations and is opening delivery branches on some high streets.

Retail Week interviews Doddle boss Tim Robinson at it's new Waterloo parcel collection point

Chief executive Tim Robinson says Doddle’s offer addresses “the disconnect between the aspirations of home delivery and the fact that more than 50% of homes are unoccupied during business hours”.

This disconnect will continue to drive innovation in retailers’ delivery strategies. “While technology will improve home delivery, there is a fundamental imbalance between retail delivery times and customers’ working hours that collection points can address” says James Doyan, managing director of multichannel consultancy Athito Retail.

Retail collection points could prove particularly useful for etailers. “For pure-play retailers the last mile in delivery is giving their customers convenient access to pick up their products,” says Doyan.

Etailers including Amazon and Asos have already signed up to use Doddle’s service, and click-and-collect centres could be the missing link in completing the fulfilment journey for online retailers.

By opening stores in transport hubs, Robinson says Doddle “fits perfectly around the hectic lifestyle of the everyday commuter”, and this looks increasingly relevant for the retail scene at large.

“It’s all about offering our customers choice – we need to find ways for them to shop that fit into their busy lifestyles and transport hubs will be part of that solution,” says Asda’s Anslow.

With Doddle’s plans to open 300 stores in the next three years, Asda’s goal is to have 1,000 UK click-and-collect points by the end of 2015 and John Lewis’s St Pancras click-and-collect branch, transport’s role in delivery looks certain to gather momentum.