After being attacked by Shein and Temu, American e-commerce platforms set off a logistics war

It is learned that according to foreign media reports, Amazon, Walmart and Target are going all out to increase delivery speeds to maintain their advantage in competition with low-cost retailers such as Shein and Temu.

In general, Amazon's delivery speed has become the industry standard and is the well-deserved "speed king". In addition, for Walmart and Target, in addition to maintaining competitiveness, their investment is also to narrow the gap with Amazon in delivery speed.

Previously, Amazon operated its domestic delivery business in a national model, shipping the products customers needed to all parts of the United States. That is, the goods purchased by the buyer would be shipped from the warehouse no matter how far away they were.

This year, Amazon adopted a regional delivery model. It divides the country into eight regions and mainly ships from warehouses in these regions. Under this model, packages can be delivered to Prime customers faster. Amazon said that this move is aimed at shortening the distance of goods transportation and reducing transit stations, which will not only help the company speed up delivery but also reduce costs.

Amazon said in July that 76% of orders are now fulfilled within the customer's region, up from 62% before the change. "We will continue to work hard to provide Prime customers with the fastest delivery in our 29-year history," Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said on an October earnings call.

The push for faster deliveries has also come from Amazon’s expansion of its same-day delivery service, which it first introduced in 2015 for Prime members, who pay $139 a year for free two-day shipping and other benefits.

Amazon's same-day delivery sites are located in metropolitan areas and primarily stock the top 100,000 products that customers demand, according to Sarah Mathew, vice president of Amazon's delivery experience. Amazon currently has 55 such sites in the United States, and the company plans to double that number in the next few years.

In order to catch up with Amazon's delivery speed and cope with competition from Shein and Temu, Walmart and Target have also invested in warehouse upgrades, new facilities or other logistics projects.

Walmart uses its more than 4,000 stores across the United States as fulfillment centers and delivery hubs for online orders. In November, the retail giant said it would add 40 new delivery stations to its stores in nine states by the end of the year to handle more merchandise and get goods to customers faster. Walmart said the delivery stations, which are like small post offices that receive and deliver packages, will continue to operate during the holiday season.

Meanwhile, Walmart is working to transform its warehouses, including 42 regional distribution centers, through automation to speed up deliveries to stores and customers, and it plans to add more than 100 smaller facilities connected to stores to handle online orders.

Walmart has also opened its first three fully automated "next-generation" distribution centers since last year. These distribution centers store the most popular items and reduce the steps to pack and ship orders from 12 to five. The company said these centers, along with changes to its transportation network, have enabled it to "dramatically increase" the number of orders shipped the next day. With this move, Walmart hopes to double the number of customer orders it fulfills each day and expand next-day and two-day delivery services to nearly 90% of the United States.

Earlier this year, Target announced a $100 million investment in warehouse expansions, called sortation centers, to speed up shipments, a move that Target predicts will double the volume of deliveries from these centers to more than 5,000 packages this year.

It is reported that Target's sorting center mainly receives online orders from 30 to 40 surrounding stores. These orders will be sorted, batched and routed by third-party carriers or Shipt owned by Target, and then delivered to local communities.

Editor ✎ Nicole/

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