Click and collect at retail parks: how it works and your rights

Click and collect suits retail parks well. Large stores have space for collection points, the car park is right outside, and you can check stock before a long drive. Many retailers now also offer lockers, drive-up collection bays where staff bring the order to your car, and same-day collection within an hour or two.

This guide covers the practical side and the less obvious legal side.

How the process usually works

1. Order and pay online or in an app. You choose a store and, for some retailers, a collection slot.
2. Wait for the "ready to collect" message. Do not set off on the strength of the order confirmation alone; that only tells you the order was received.
3. Bring what is asked for. Usually the order number or a barcode, and often photo ID or the payment card.
4. Collect from the point named in the message: a desk inside, a locker, or a marked bay in the car park.
5. Check the goods before you leave if you can, especially for visible damage or missing parts.

Drive-up collection bays

Some retail park stores have marked bays where you park, tell the store you have arrived, and staff bring the order out. These bays may have their own short time limit. If you need to go into the store afterwards, move to a standard bay to avoid a private parking charge.

Lockers

Lockers are handy outside opening hours, which matters on Sundays in England and Wales, when large shops can open for only six hours (see Sunday trading hours). They are usually limited to smaller parcels, and the code typically expires after a set number of days.

Your rights when you click and collect

A 14-day right to cancel

When you buy in a shop, you have no legal right to return something you simply do not want. But click and collect orders are normally placed online, and that makes them distance contracts under the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013. That gives you a right to cancel, usually for 14 days from the day you collect the goods, without giving a reason. You then have a further 14 days to return them.

There are exceptions. The right to cancel does not apply to, among other things, goods made to your specifications or clearly personalised, perishable goods, and sealed goods unsuitable for return for health or hygiene reasons once unsealed. If you open sealed audio, video or software, you lose the right for that item too.

In practice, most retailers let you return click and collect items to the store, and many have longer goodwill periods anyway. Where the retailer's policy is shorter or stricter than 14 days, the legal cancellation right still applies.

Some retailers offer "reserve and collect", where you reserve an item online and pay in store when you collect. Whether the cancellation right applies then is less clear-cut, because the contract may be made in the shop. If that matters to you, ask the retailer before you buy.

Faulty goods

Your rights for faulty, misdescribed or unfit goods are exactly the same as for any other purchase: the Consumer Rights Act 2015 applies, including the 30-day right to reject. See our guide to returning goods.

Risk and damage

Goods remain the trader's responsibility until you take possession. If an item is damaged while being stored or brought out to you, the trader must sort it out. Once you have it in your car, the risk is yours, which is one reason to check large boxed items before you load them.

Delays and cancellations by the retailer

If the retailer cannot fulfil your order, it must refund you. If it agreed a collection date and misses it, and the date was essential (for example, you told them you needed it for a specific event), you can treat the contract as ended and get a refund.

Tips for a smooth collection

• Check the collection point's hours. They are sometimes shorter than the shop's.
• For bulky items, check whether collection is from the main store or a separate goods-out door, and whether staff will help with loading. Our guide to getting bulky purchases home covers measuring the car and securing loads.
• Combine collections with other shops in an order that keeps you inside the car park time limit. See planning a retail park trip.
• Keep the confirmation email. It serves as your proof of purchase, and it shows the date you collected, which starts the 14-day cancellation period.
• If you have mobility needs, ask whether staff can bring the order to your car. See our accessibility guide.

Age-restricted items

Retailers selling age-restricted products such as knives, some tools with blades, solvents, alcohol and certain fireworks will check age at collection, and some will only hand the order to the person who placed it. If the named person cannot show ID, the order may be refused and refunded. Check the retailer's rules before sending someone else.

If the order is wrong or incomplete

Check that the number of boxes matches the order before you leave the collection point. Large items, such as wardrobes or bed frames, often come in several packages, and one missing box can stop you assembling anything. If something is missing, damaged or simply not what you ordered, raise it at the desk there and then, and ask for a note of what was handed over. If you only find the problem at home, contact the retailer promptly in writing. Goods that are incomplete or not as described fall under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 in the same way as any other purchase, so the retailer must put it right, and the 30-day right to reject applies.

Keep the packaging until you have checked everything. It makes a return easier, whichever route you use.