Faster Shipping Is Target’s Goal with New Sortation Centers

Target (Minneapolis) is working to add three new sortation centers within the next year, according to a company press release. Two of these will be located in Chicago, and a third in Denver, with the overall goal to provide faster shipping and reduce costs. It currently has six sortation centers in operation.

Using a “st0res-as-hubs” strategy, Target’s sortation centers take on the sorting process when it comes to online orders, rather than team members at stores managing the packing and sorting in their store’s backrooms.

In recent years, Target partnered with Shipt through its Minneapolis sortation center, and have upwards of 2000 Shipt drivers delivering packages from their personal vehicles. Now Target wants to work with Shipt to test the use of large-capacity delivery vehicles in Minneapolis. “The vehicles can hold up to eight times more packages per route, adding more flexibility to deliver even faster and make room for growing order sizes. And it’s just the start: We’ll continue to test and improve, with plans to scale in the years to come,” the company wrote in the announcement.

The mass merchant’s digital sales grew a reported $13 billion from 2019 to 2021.