Dive Brief:
- Target expects to process up to 400,000 packages per day across its sortation center network during the holiday season, quadrupling its usual output compared to the rest of the year, according to a company fact sheet.
- The retail giant also said the company will lean on 4,400 store backroom pack stations to help fulfill sales and that more than 160,000 trailers will deliver to stores during the next month and a half.
- Accelerated shipping is also part of Target’s holiday push, a spokesperson said in an email. Next-day deliveries will be available for orders placed before noon in markets located near sortation centers.
Dive Insight:
Target been hard at work strengthening its fulfillment network as it pursues its goal of making more next-day deliveries this holiday season.
The company added four supply chain facilities to its network in the last year, including a Detroit sortation center. The new location, which also receives volume from Target’s Chicago sortation center, allows the company to serve over 3 million additional customers while increasing next-day deliveries in the market by over 150%.
The Detroit facility is one of 11 such sortation centers in Target’s network, with others in Minnesota, Texas, Colorado, Illinois, Georgia, Florida and Pennsylvania, according to the fact sheet. These facilities support next-day delivery in markets such as Minneapolis, Houston, Chicago, Philadelphia and Denver, among others, the spokesperson said.
Target's sortation centers support next-day delivery
Beyond its sortation center expansion, Target also opened an omnichannel distribution center in Hampton, Georgia, and two food distribution centers in Sacramento, California, and Windsor, Connecticut, this year.
“And as we’ve ramped up our omnichannel flow center network over time, we have more facilities carrying our full assortment, which means faster delivery and items arriving in fewer packages for guests,” per the fact sheet.
Target will also lean on its “stores-as-hubs strategy” to support the holiday order rush, according to a Nov. 13 Q&A with COO Michael Fiddelke. Part of this strategy has involved retrofitting stores with fulfillment capabilities to complete ship-from-store orders.
“Our supply chain team times shipments to stores so inventory is arriving at the right time at the right location for our guests,” Fiddelke said. “Throughout October, our stores prepared their backrooms for the expected shipments of gingerbread houses and other holiday inventory so they could quickly transition from Halloween to Thanksgiving and beyond.”
The retailer said in September it plans to hire roughly 100,000 seasonal in-store and supply chain employees this year, including fulfillment-related positions.
