Target in same-day curbside pickup pilot with startup Curbside
Palo Alto, Calif. -- Curbside, a new startup that specializes in same-day pickup from local stores, launched its service on Monday with several retailers on board, including a pilot with Target Corp.
The new service is currently available in 10 Target stores across the greater San Francisco Bay area, including the retailer’s Metreon and Geary St. locations downtown.
“At Target, we are always looking for new ways to improve the shopping experience,” said Casey Carl, Target’s president of omnichannel. “We’re excited to see how our Bay Area guests respond to the Curbside service, which provides an extremely convenient way for guests to get what they need on those days when every moment counts.”
Curbside is also available at the Westfield’s Oakridge shopping center in San Jose, serving a number of retailers from a single pickup location.
Curbside is designed to be mobile from the ground up, with a one-stop destination app that allows shoppers to find the products that are in stock at multiple local stores and check out with a single tap. The site, which is optimized for shopping on a small screen, allows consumers to shop with one card securely on file.
The service and app are both free, and Curbside does not mark up store prices.
Shoppers can shop hundreds of thousands of items, available at local stores, any time and pick it up at the location they want, all without having to find items on shelves or wait in checkout lines. At Curbside Pickup locations, shoppers can get what they need without having to park or get out of their car. The app’s location capabilities notify the Curbside staff that shoppers are approaching so their items are ready.
Curbside was founded by two former Apple engineers, both who have backgrounds in location-based technology: Jaron Waldman founded Placebase, which was later sold to Apple, and Denis Laprise, founded Poly9, which was also acquired by Apple. The startup has received a total of $9.5 million in funding.