American discount retailer Target is looking to infiltrate the increasingly lucrative home delivery market with the introduction of a next-day delivery service, dubbed Target Restock, that is designed to enable online shoppers to have everyday essential items such as laundry detergent, snacks and pet food delivered right to their doorstep.
Customers are able to fill their virtual box with up to 45 pounds of items for a price of $4.99 a box, and have to log on to the service using their Target.com accounts.
The Target Restock delivery service is currently being offered as a pilot program, and aims to differentiate itself in that it fulfills orders by procuring them from nearby stores rather than a centralized warehouse, which could potentially cut down on expenses as well as delivery time.
Why This Trend Is Growing
- Next-day Delivery
- Introducing next-day delivery services that deliver everyday essentials for a low flat fee, which disrupts traditional delivery services.
- Localized Order Fulfillment
- Fulfilling orders by procuring them from nearby stores rather than a centralized warehouse which reduces delivery time and costs, thus disrupting ecommerce fulfillment services.
- Virtual Boxes
- Creating the ability for customers to create virtual boxes, using their Target.com accounts, to be delivered to their door, disrupting the traditional shopping experience.
Industries Being Reshaped
- Retail
- Online retail stores can focus on differentiated delivery offerings to attract customers and provide a unique experience, disruptive to traditional retail models.
- Ecommerce Fulfillment
- Optimizing the fulfillment system through localized order fulfillment to reduce costs and delivery time, bringing a significant disruption in ecommerce fulfillment services.
- Logistics
- Improving ways to optimize and streamline logistics operations, driving costs down and improving customer delivery times, in disruption to traditional logistics operation models.
