US-based retail giant Target has revealed plans to spend $100 million over the following five years to add more than half a dozen new facilities to its US sortation network.
By the end of 2026, this investment will increase Target’s total number of sortation centers to 15, enabling the business to expand its next-day delivery services to more markets. The “shops-as-hubs” concept. This enables Target to use its physical stores to fulfill online purchases, and relies heavily on the sortation centers.
It’s great to see Target using its existing real estate to enable their customers to have a faster delivery. Using retail stores for delivery is a great idea and enables the retail store to deliver faster because these retail stores are close to their customers. This is one of the advantages that Target has over the likes of Amazon. It will be interesting to see in 2023 which other retailers start to adopt this plan.
At Zoom2u, we have seen companies like Nespresso and Bunnings utilize their retail stores to dispatch goods directly to their customers rather than going via a sortation warehouse which slows down the speed of delivery.
Retail is playing catch up to Amazon in that they have purpose built warehouses designed for fast pick and pack and direct delivery service from the warehouse to their consumers.
Same day delivery is going to be the key for ecommerce businesses to win customers and see them returning consistently.
