Tech
Target’s Shipt same-day delivery service is expanding
Shipt, the same-day grocery delivery service acquired by Target last year, has announced plans to expand into more cities and offer a wider product selection starting in 2019. The company told TechCrunch that the service will begin deliveries of “all major product categories” next year, expanding from groceries and home goods into clothing, beauty products, and more.
Shipt employs shoppers to pick up items and deliver them to customers in as little as one hour. The service currently excludes clothing, shoes, accessories, bedding, bath, and entertainment items from deliveries, but it appears that’ll change next year with the company’s expansion plans. Shipt says it’s now available in 200 markets across 46 states, and will continue to expand to new markets, though it hasn’t specified which cities yet.
A yearly Shipt membership is $99, $20 cheaper than Amazon Prime’s $119 annual fee, which includes same-day shipping. Amazon, which recently ended a partnership with Shipt rival Instacart inside of Whole Foods, also charges an extra $14.99 per month on top of the Prime membership for its own grocery delivery service, AmazonFresh.
Walmart has partnered with a long list of companies for its deliveries, which include Uber, Lyft, Postmates, and DoorDash. The company also recently announced it’s testing a crowdsourced last-mile delivery service called Spark Delivery.
Walmart doesn’t have membership fees and instead offers free two-day shipping on orders over $35, which some shoppers may prefer. In any case, more options are opening up for shoppers who want the convenience of groceries and essentials delivered to their homes on the same day.