TechCrunch reports that "same-day delivery is coming to Target’s app. The retailer announced this morning that its same-day shopping service Shipt, which Target acquired two years ago for $550 million, will now be integrated directly into the Target mobile application. Though Shipt is widely known as an online grocery service that competes with Instacart and others, Target is putting the service to work to do more than deliver food and various household items.
"Instead, Shipt is turning into Target’s own version of Amazon’s Prime Now. Currently, Target shoppers can order 65,000 items from the app for same-day delivery, including not just groceries and essentials, but also toys, baby-care products, kitchenware and more."
This is, the story says, part of Target's ongoing efforts to modernize "its business to better compete with Amazon and help customers shop however they want — in-store, online or some hybrid of the two, as with Drive Up orders. In less than two years’ time, Drive Up became a top-rated service and it more than doubled the number of 2018 orders by fulfilling more than 5 million orders in the first part of the year, for example. Meanwhile, Target recently said that one in five customers were placing same-day orders with Target for the first time in Q2, indicating the potential for growth in same-day."
"Instead, Shipt is turning into Target’s own version of Amazon’s Prime Now. Currently, Target shoppers can order 65,000 items from the app for same-day delivery, including not just groceries and essentials, but also toys, baby-care products, kitchenware and more."
This is, the story says, part of Target's ongoing efforts to modernize "its business to better compete with Amazon and help customers shop however they want — in-store, online or some hybrid of the two, as with Drive Up orders. In less than two years’ time, Drive Up became a top-rated service and it more than doubled the number of 2018 orders by fulfilling more than 5 million orders in the first part of the year, for example. Meanwhile, Target recently said that one in five customers were placing same-day orders with Target for the first time in Q2, indicating the potential for growth in same-day."
- KC's View:
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"Help customers shop however they want."
Six words …. but representing a critical insight into how retailers have to compete in the current marketplace.
They used to call it "omnichannel," but I think that represents old-world thinking, because it is a retailer-centric term. What retailers have to be is relentlessly customer focused, figuring out ways to be compelling and relevant and resonant.
If you can't do that, turn out the lights, the party's over, they say that all good things must end.
