Target cuts delivery fee by almost half

Target will cut its next day delivery fee nearly in half for household staples ranging from paper towels to peanut butter as it rolls the service out to shoppers nationwide.

Starting this week, customers purchasing household staples through the discount department store chain’s Restock service will pay a $2.99 delivery fee instead of $4.99. And those who buy items with Target’s branded credit/debit card won’t pay anything extra at all.

The change comes at a time when shoppers have grown used to the speed and convenience pioneered by e-commerce giant Amazon, turning delivery into a prime battleground for retailers.

In addition to slashing fees, Target, like rival Walmart, says that it’s tapping its network of stores to more quickly fulfill orders and shrink the time it might take for products to be delivered from a far away warehouse.

“We believe that if we can utilize our stores as a hub. .. we can unlock a great deal of speed and value,” says Dawn Block, Target’s senior vice president of digital. “That’s why anchoring to our stores is so critical to us.’’

Target’s Restock service was first given a test run last year in Minneapolis-St. Paul, and then tried out in another 10 markets. This week, it will become available in more than 60 markets, designed to be within range of 75 percent of the U.S. population, including Austin, Omaha, Seattle, and many suburban and rural areas that may not have a local Target store easily in reach of many.

With Restock, customers can buy baby formula, coffee and any of 35,000 items online by 7 p.m. any week day. The purchases are then dropped at their front door the next day.