If there’s one thing that makes a good day even better, it’s that yesss feeling when an order you’ve been waiting for arrives at your door. We love it too, and we’re always looking for ways to get guests their online orders even faster.
Like our new sortation center, which opened in Minneapolis last year. We built this first-of-its-kind facility — powered by technology we’ve acquired from Grand Junction and Deliv — to help us ship packages from our stores more efficiently. Now, we’re using it to test a new capability with our popular Shipt delivery service that speeds up the last mile of the delivery.
“For years, Target has put our stores at the center of how we serve our guests. Our new sortation center builds on that model by helping us ship online orders with greater speed and lower costs, while making room for future growth,” says John Mulligan, Target’s chief operating officer. “By adding Shipt to that operation, we’re now testing how we can reach guests even faster with efficient local deliveries.”
Take a closer look at how it works.
Step 1: Guests place an online order and a store team packages it for delivery
Our stores operate as convenient hubs for both shopping and digital fulfillment. So when you order a product on Target.com, it’s likely to ship right from your local Target.
Step 2: The sortation center collects packages from across the area
Once a local store team packs up their online purchases for delivery, trailers sweep the packages off to the sortation center nearby. Our sortation center is already serving most of our Minneapolis-St. Paul stores and will serve all metro stores by the end of April, when it will act as a central location to collect and sort local orders for multiple carrier partners to pick up for delivery.
Watch this video to learn more.
Step 3: Our technology sorts and routes the packages
Once packages arrive at the sortation center, we use our proprietary technologies acquired from Grand Junction and Deliv to determine the most efficient way to sort, route and deliver to local neighborhoods.
Step 4: Batches of orders go out for delivery
Sorting packages into batches by neighborhood makes deliveries that much easier for our carriers. Now, we’re also testing how Shipt Drivers can pick up batches of local orders and quickly deliver directly to guests. (Hooray!)
This test is another example of how Target invests and innovates to create shopping experiences and fulfillment options that reflect how our guests want to shop.
