Click and collect

Click and collect sits deliberately across the two channels, which is why it causes so much trouble in reported metrics. The order is placed online and the goods change hands in a store, so a reasonable company can book the sale in either channel and both choices are defensible.

That choice flows straight into the numbers a reader compares. Booking it in store sales flatters store like for like and understates online penetration, and booking it in online sales does the reverse. Nothing about the underlying trade differs, only the labelling, and no accounting standard settles it because these are operating metrics rather than statutory measures.

Economically it is often the best of the channels. Delivery cost falls away because the customer collects, the return can be handled at the counter cheaply, and the collection trip generates additional purchases often enough that retailers track the attachment rate.

It is also part of why the argument about how much credit a store estate deserves for online sales is unresolved. A shop that fulfils collections, takes returns and holds local inventory supports the digital channel in ways the accounts do not attribute, and practitioners disagree sharply about the size of that contribution because it is unobservable from outside.