Target Hopes To Unveil Buy Online, Pickup In-Store For Black Friday

By Sam Lewis

Retailer is also engaged in same-day delivery testing

Labor Day has come and gone, and less than three months remain before the official start of the holiday shopping season. For Target, that means becoming pro-active to catch up with the omnichannel efforts of its competitors, Walmart and Best Buy.

Officials at Target, including EVP of merchandising Kathee Tesija, have been discussing plans for a new initiative, called Buy Online, Pick Up In Store (BOPS), which, just as the name suggests, provides customers with the convenience of shopping from home, and simply retrieving items at the closest Target location. Ideally, Target would like to roll this program out to all of its U.S. stores for Black Friday shoppers in late November. “We continue to invest to further integrate the shopping experience across channels,” CEO Gregg Steinhafel recently told analysts. “We will begin in the Minneapolis market, before expanding the role to other markets. We expect to complete the rollout to all stores by the holiday season.”

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Target has had its share of e-commerce problems before the holiday season. In summer 2011, Target’s newly designed website was littered with problems, leaving shoppers furious. The site was fixed, briefly, but September of that year brought on another set of problems, leaving Target scrambling for a huge IT fix before the holiday push. Needless to say, Target cannot afford to have another enormous blunder damage its e-commerce presence just prior to the holiday season. “Consumers will not be happy if an item they ordered is not available or ready to be picked up as promised,” said Danny Silverman, vice president at the consulting firm Etailing Solutions, which advises companies on e-commerce. “It’s about meeting customer expectations,” Silverman said. Holiday shoppers “just want to get in and get out of the store as quickly as they can.”

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BOPS may present problems for Target not only in logistics, but also in sales. Target is a store that relies on shoppers’ impulse buys, in addition to the items shoppers initially pursue. “I think the key for us is just the convenience for guests,” said Tesija. “Sometimes they don’t want it delivered and sitting on their door step, but oftentimes they want to be able to get other things in the store that either go along with that core item, or just the rest of their list. So we think it will be very interesting to our guests.” BOPS has the possibility of completely ending impulse buying, as well as suggestive selling. However, if properly trained, store associates will be able to upsell customers based on the items being picked up. The implementation of new software could even prompt associates on upsell items based on in-cart items, like adding a new HDMI cable to give the best quality sound and video to the shopper’s new Blu-Ray player. Upon the launch of the BOPS program, Target will need to be prepared to offer every service possible, to every shopper, over every channel.

Also in the works for Target is the testing of same-day delivery from stores. The tests are currently limited to Target employees only, but if the testing goes well, Target will consider a roll-out of this program in 2014. Many retailers, like Amazon, eBay, and Walmart, are increasingly focusing their efforts on same-day delivery. Same-day order fulfillment across the country will be an enormous task to handle, but testing, and the eventual roll-out of the program, will be a necessity for Target to remain relevant with its competition.