IE Business Daily Business news for the Inland Empire.
Target announced Monday that all online orders of $25 or more will immediately be eligible for free shipping.
The change, which lowers the benchmark for free shipping from $50 a purchase, applies to virtually all online orders placed, according to a company statement.
Target officials made the move in part because of the company’s strong online performance during the 2014 holiday shopping season, during which it set sales records for Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday.
Cartwheel, Target’s digital coupon application, added two million users last year and has accounted for more than $1 billion in promotional sales since it started in 2013, according to the statement.
Target’s decision is another sign of online retail’s growing influence, although it’s too soon to say if other general merchandise retailers might make similar moves, said Jordan Levine, director of economic research at Beacon Economics in Los Angeles.
“Brick-and-mortar retail isn’t going away, but we’re definitely seeing more online shopping, and this move by Target is another sign of that,” Levine said. “It’s also a sign of how the delivery systems in fulfillment centers are becoming more cost effective.”
Target operates one fulfillment center – meaning a warehouse-distribution center that delivers goods to the customer the day the order is placed – in Ontario and regular distribution centers in Rialto and Fontana, said Eddie Baeb, spokesman for the Minneapolis retail giant.
Target operates 1,790 stores, all in the United States, and employs more than 350,000 people worldwide, Baeb said.
