Target Is Testing a Next-Day Home Delivery Service to Compete With Amazon Prime Pantry

Nobody likes running out at 6 a.m. to pick up toilet paper. Luckily for time-crunched shoppers, USA Today reports that Target is now piloting a new next-day home delivery service in Minneapolis.

Minneapolis is home to Target’s corporate headquarters, and the new delivery service, Target Restock, is currently being tested among local employees. This summer, it will become available to REDcard-holding residents, according to a company blog post.

Customers with a REDcard—a Target-issued credit card or debit card—will be able to visit a website and choose from “thousands of household essentials,” like laundry detergent, granola bars, and coffee. Orders placed before 1:30 p.m. will arrive on their front doorstep by the following day.

Delivery costs are unclear, although Target spokesman Eddie Baeb told USA Today that it will charge a "low, flat fee" competitive with similar delivery services, like Amazon Prime Pantry, which charges $6 per box.

With Target Restock, the chain hopes to directly compete with online retailers like Amazon, which delivers Prime Pantry orders within one to five business days. That said, Target officials don’t think that operating a home-delivery service will diminish the popularity of their brick-and-mortar stores. (After all, who doesn’t love the ability to buy bread, a bath mat, and a bathing suit all at once?)

“People enjoy going to Target to buy apparel, toys, games, lots of things,” Mike McNamara, Target’s chief information and digital officer, told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. “I’m not so sure people have a huge amount of enjoyment about buying toothpaste. What Restock does is it gives you a choice to take some of the drudgery out of that weekly shop, and then you leave all of the fun back in the store so going to the store is a more pleasurable experience.”

[h/t USA Today]