Target store fulfillment grows in holiday-shopping battle with Amazon

Target is gearing up for a
battle this holiday season.
Sergei
Bachlakov / Shutterstock

• Target has its sights set on
  Amazon this holiday season.
• Reuters reported that the
  company plans to fulfill 90% of all orders through its store
  inventory this year.
• “Our stores are at the center of our digital growth,” CEO
  Brian Cornell told CNBC earlier this month.

Target has placed a bullseye
on Amazon this holiday season.

The retail chain isn’t just
removing the order minimum on the majority of its online
purchases for the holidays. Target is also planning to expand its
digital-order-fulfillment capabilities within its stores.

According to Reuters, Target currently
fulfills 50% of all digital orders through its physical stores,
although that number jumped to 70% during the 2017 holiday
season. This year, the goal is to fulfill 90% of all online
orders with store inventory.

“Our stores are at the center of our digital growth,” CEO Brian
Cornell told CNBC earlier this month.
“They are fulfilling the majority of our online orders. They are
center to everything we are doing at Target.”

Target’s overhaul of its fulfillment strategy has set the stage
for a holiday battle with Amazon. And unlike Amazon, Target can
rely on its own existing store infrastructure to expand its
fulfillment capabilities. It’s an advantage that Walmart also
shares.

But unlike Walmart, which is sticking to its strategy of offering
associates more hours during
busier times of the year, Target is following Amazon’s lead and
boosting its workforce during the holiday rush. This year, Amazon
plans to hire 100,000 seasonal
employees to work in its fulfillment centers. And Reuters reported that Target
will hire 120,000 seasonal workers. 7,500 of those temporary team
members will be assigned to “pack boxes in warehouses.”

Target’s plans for boosting its store fulfillment align with CB
Insights analyst Natan Reddy’s
recent presentation on “Reimagining the Physical Store,”
which listed Target as one of the retailers transforming its
stores into fulfillment centers. According to Reddy, Target will
achieve this transition by paring down its inventory “to make
space for digital fulfillment.”

Target’s move to e-commerce is likely the ticket to success in a
new era for retail. Business Insider‘s Mary
Hanbury reported that the company, along with competitors like
Walmart,
Target,
Nordstrom,
and Kohl’s, saw
“strong earnings results in the most recent quarter after
launching new initiatives to blend e-commerce and in-store
shopping.”

Currently, a Target shopper can buy products
through the retailer’s mobile app, drive over to one of the
approximately 1,000 stores that provide drive-up services, and
have their purchases delivered to their car.