In click-and-collect, also called buy online, pick up in store (BOPIS), a customer buys online and collects the order in person. Curbside pickup moves that hand-off from a counter or locker inside the store to the parking lot. In freight shipping, curbside means something else: a delivery that stops at the curb, covered below.
How Curbside Pickup Works
These steps follow Target's Drive Up and Best Buy's Curbside Pickup instructions, as read in November 2026.
- Order and choose a store. The customer shops on the retailer's website or app and picks the store to collect from. Target shows which items are available for pickup at that store.
- Wait for the ready notice. The store gets the order ready, then tells the customer. Best Buy asks customers to wait for its "Your Order Is Ready for Pickup" email before leaving for the store.
- Drive over and check in. The customer parks in a designated curbside space and checks in from the app or the ready email. Target's button is "I'm here", and its app also lets the customer say they are on the way. Best Buy's button is "I am at the store", with a box for the parking spot number and a description of the vehicle.
- Hand-off. An employee brings the order out and loads it into the vehicle.
Walmart's help page, as read in November 2026, runs a similar flow: the customer selects "I'm on my way" in the app or ready email, parks in a Curbside Pickup spot, selects "I've parked," enters the spot number and vehicle color, and an associate brings the order out.
Because the store prepares the order and holds it until the customer arrives, curbside pickup is a form of store fulfillment, and one of the ways a retailer links its website and its stores in omni-channel fulfillment. Ship-from-store uses store stock in the other direction, sending the order out by carrier. Brands that sell both to retailers and direct to consumers can compare 3PLs that handle omnichannel orders.
Curbside Pickup vs. In-Store Pickup and Home Delivery
- Curbside pickup: the customer drives to the store and waits in the car while staff bring the order out.
- In-store pickup: the customer walks in and collects the order at a counter or locker. Both are forms of click-and-collect.
- Home delivery: a carrier or courier takes the order to the customer's door. That last-mile delivery leg is the trip curbside pickup hands to the customer.
ID and Alcohol Rules
Pickup can come with an ID check. Best Buy asks customers to have their ID, order confirmation and credit card with them. A designated pickup person gives the 4-digit code generated at check-in and may be asked for ID.
Alcohol adds an age check. Walmart includes alcohol in pickup orders where state or local law allows it. A customer must be 21 or older with a valid government-issued photo ID; if the customer cannot show one, the alcohol is removed from the order and not charged.
Some states write curbside alcohol rules into law, so a store should check its own state's rule before it offers alcohol at the curb. Washington, for example, requires a grocery store's employee who brings the order to the vehicle to be at least 18 and trained to verify ID.
Curbside Delivery in Freight
In freight, curbside is a service level for deliveries and some carrier pickups, not a shopper's pickup. A curbside delivery stops outside, at the curb, driveway or garage threshold, and does not include carrying the goods in. FedEx Freight Direct shows the levels side by side on its US page: Basic delivers to the front door, back door, garage or patio, or to the curb if the consignee asks, with no inside delivery or installation; Standard goes to the first ground-level room; Premium adds a two-person delivery or placement in the room of choice. Services that go further, such as assembly or installation, fall under white glove service.
LTL carriers start from the same outside baseline. Estes's rules tariff, for one, says freight "will be unloaded at the delivery site immediately adjacent to the delivery vehicle," and moving it further costs extra, on request and when operating conditions permit.