Target Adding 3 Sortation Facilities to Fulfill E-Commerce Demand

In an effort to further its stores-as-hubs strategy, Target Corp. will bring three new sortation facilities online this year, increasing its total U.S. sortation centers to nine. Two of the facilities will be located in the greater Chicago area and the other will be in the Denver metro area.

According to Target, its sortation centers take orders packed in stores and sort them for local deliveries. The facilities take on the tasks of consolidating orders and batching deliveries, creating efficiencies, lowering costs and speeding up delivery time to customers.

The retailer has used its Minneapolis sortation center as a testing ground to perfect its delivery workflow, and the facility now has the ability to handle packages from 43 Twin Cities stores twice daily to be sorted and picked up by Shipt drivers and other carrier partners. Target is also now working with Shipt to pilot the use of large-capacity delivery vehicles in the city. 

“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,” the retailer said of the large-capacity vehicle pilot. “And it’s just the start: We’ll continue to test and improve, with plans to scale in the years to come. It’s yet another way we’re investing across our operations to support our teams, build on our strategy and deliver joy for our guests.”

Target plans to add even more sortation centers in new markets in the coming years to further follow through with its stores-first strategy. Last month, the company reached a major milestone with its 1,000th store remodel. Target plans to fully remodel 200 more stores this year and also deliver almost 200 fulfillment renovations in its stores to help build capacity for its same-day services.

Minneapolis-based Target Corp. is No. 6 on The PG 100, Progressive Grocer’s 2022 list of the top food and consumables retailers in North America, with nearly 2,000 locations.