Will Amazon open an offline department store? Target adds 4 new picking centers to enhance competitiveness!

Target is reportedly shortening the time of its online delivery process by fulfilling grocery orders from offline stores. In April 2021, Target piloted a new sorting center in Minneapolis, which not only streamlined the fulfillment process for digital orders from physical stores, but also took on more than 95% of online grocery orders.

Under the sorting center model, when shoppers place an order on Target.com, store associates pick and pack digital grocery orders, which are then collected by Target trucks and taken to sorting centers, where proprietary technology is used to automatically batch routes for fast delivery at the neighborhood level.

Given the success of the pilot sorting center, Target is expanding its sorting center concept. It is reported that starting in the fall of 2021, Target will open four new sorting centers in the United States - located in Houston, Dallas, Philadelphia area and Lawrenceville, Georgia.

Target said that the acceleration of its sorting center model was due to the recent news that Amazon plans to open a physical department store. Professionals analyzed that physical department stores can serve as local fulfillment centers for Amazon's online orders for products such as clothing and consumer electronics. For this reason, Target said that the key to winning the market competition with Amazon is to maximize its online delivery efficiency.

It is learned that Target stated that it invests $4 billion every year to build optimized infrastructure to provide buyers with good services and a perfect shopping experience. By eliminating the sorting process in the backstage of the physical store, Target saves the physical store team time and space to complete additional orders, and because its sorting center technology can pre-sort and arrange packages for pickup, it also reduces the processing time of delivery partners. Target has achieved higher transportation and efficiency, providing buyers with faster delivery services.

Editor ✎ Estella /

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