Target expands sortation network; tests larger capacity delivery vehicles

Target Corp. continues to expand its next-day delivery capabilities.

The retailer opened its tenth sortation center in August, in Miami. Target piloted the concept —  which streamline the process of fulfilling and delivering online orders, removing the sorting process from the backroom of stores — in April 2021, with a pilot in its Minneapolis hometown.

In February, the company revealed plans to spend $100 million to expand the network  to more than 15 facilities by the end of 2026. Since the start of its sortation center operations, the facilities have helped to increase the number of orders delivered to customers the next day by more than 150%, Target said in a post on its website.

Looking to speed up delivery even further, the retailer in June opened its first “Target Last Mile Delivery” extension facility, in Smyrna, Ga. 

The facility receives local, pre-sorted packages from Target’s Atlanta sortation center and stages them for pickup and next-day delivery by drivers on the Shipt platform to additional neighborhoods. Built at a fraction of the cost of a full-size sortation center, the TLMD extension brings the retailer’s next-day delivery capabilities to more than 500,000 additional customers in the greater Atlanta market.

The company has brought Target Last Mile Delivery to all its sortation center facilities. 

“Through Target Last Mile Delivery, we collaborate with our partners at Shipt, and drivers on the Shipt platform sign up to deliver batches of orders that have been sorted hyper locally down to the neighborhood level,” the company said.

Larger Capacity Vehicles

In 2022, Target, in partnership with Shipt, began testing the use of larger capacity vehicles to increase both flexibility and speed in delivering. This year, in partnership with Shipt, the company expanded options for drivers to take advantage of larger routes where they can use larger-capacity vehicles, including delivery vans, that can hold up to eight times more packages per route. 

“We're currently testing the use of larger capacity vehicles to deliver orders at two of our sortation center markets, with plans to expand to all markets in the next few years,” Target said.