If you were hoping that Target’s curbside pickup would eventually reach your city, your hopes are for naught: Target tells Consumerist the pilot program will be discontinued effective June 15.
After Consumerist received word that the program — which kicked off in October 2014 with partner Curbside, and was being tested in 121 stores in the San Francisco Bay Area, New York, New Jersey, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles — would be shut down, we reached out to Target headquarters.
The company confirmed what we’d heard, saying in an emailed statement that it had “learned a lot” from the pilot, but “as we’ve shared for months now, at this time Target is focused on making sure we deliver and execute on retail fundamentals.”
That includes devoting more of its resources toward “enhancing” its “core of digital-stores offerings such as Cartwheel, Order Pickup and shipping online orders from stores.”
“The pilot with Curbside will be discontinued in mid-June as part of those efforts,” Target says.
Because we’re feeling nostalgic, here’s a (very brief) timeline of events that led up to the program going kaput:
August 2014: Target and Curbside launched their pilot program at stores in the San Francisco Bay area. (Warning: auto-play video at that link)
October 2015: Target and Curbside expanded their partnership to an additional 100 stores, bringing the service to select stores in the San Francisco Bay Area, New York, New Jersey, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles.
May 17, 2016: Target digital chief Jason Goldberger told Re/Code that customers shouldn’t expect to see an increase in partnerships with startups like Curbside and Instacart.
by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist