Target beefs up same-day fulfillment services for holidays

Target is adding new features to its drive-up, order pickup, and same-day delivery services in time for the holiday season.

The discount giant, which has already run its “Target Deal Days” Black Friday preview promotion and launched its annual holiday price matching guarantee, is adding more than 18,000 spaces for curbside pickup as part of its effort to make holiday shopping more customizable across channels.  

Other new features include “Shopping Partner,” which allows a customer to send someone to pick up an order in their place.  Another new option, “Forget Something,” will let customers easily place a new order at the same store after their initial order  has been placed in the Target app, and then obtain all their products at once. Also, customers can designate a “backup” item as a second choice if their preferred food and beverage pickup item is unavailable (excludes adult beverage items).

The retailer has also expanded the assortment of items available via its Shipt same-day delivery platform, including a wider range of apparel and accessories, premium Ulta Beauty products, electronics, toys, and adult beverage items – a new delivery product for holiday 2021. Customers can select what Target store their Shipt shopper shops at.

To add flexibility, Target has tripled the number of store fulfillment expert roles during the past two years. The company will train all new store associates to provide backup same-day fulfillment support. Thousands of associates have completed enhanced training within Target’s various shop-in-shop collaborations - including beauty, tech, and food and beverage.

In addition to hosting its own early Black Friday promotion, department store retailer Macy’s also recently unveiled a set of enhanced omnichannel shopping tools for the holiday season. These include a redesigned mobile app, livestream shopping, contactless payment, and an expanded 3-D room planner.

"Our guests love the convenience of our same-day services, and we've seen tremendous growth in these offerings over the past year, driven by continued investments in our amazing team members and our stores,” said Mark Schindele, chief stores officer, Target. “With even more flexibility in these options this holiday season, we're ready to make our guests' Target runs easier than ever. We continue to hear from customers that they love the experience we provide – from the drive-up lane to the register.”

Minneapolis-based Target Corp. operates more than 1,900 stores and an e-commerce site.