San Francisco

MAJOR US retailers including Target Corp and Toys "R" Us have begun allowing shoppers to collect online purchases at their brick-and-mortar stores, but a study shows the option often saves little, if any, time over in-store shopping.

According to a small study to be released on Tuesday by retail-intelligence firm StellaService, in-store pickup saved shoppers just 96 seconds on average compared with searching for items on their own. In a few cases, in-store pickup took longer.