Target Nixes Curbside Pickup Pilot

Click-and-collect programs seemed like one of those low-risk ways brick-and-mortar retails could compete with the alluring convenience of online merchants. However, Target is finding out that, like most things in retail, curbside pickup for online orders just wasn’t that easy.

Consumerist is reporting that Target will be cutting off its curbside pickup pilot program that had been running in select stores since at least Aug. 2014. At its height, the program allowed 121 stores located primarily in coastal cities to bridge their in-store and online sales operations, thanks to partners like Curbside. However, the initiative apparently didn’t yield the results Target was hoping for, as it will be pulling back to focus instead on “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,” a Target spokesperson told Consumerist.

Specifically, June 14 has been pegged as the death date for Target’s foray into click-and-collect programs, and while it’s not out of the question for a similar offering to pop back up when Target finds the time and resources for it, don’t expect it to happen via a third-party partner like before. At least, Jason Goldberger, chief digital officer at Target, doesn’t want to see it go that way.

“Quite a lot of people want to work with us,” Goldberger told Recode. “Most companies can’t handle the scale. The few we do — the list is short — are doing something we aren’t focused on doing or that we want to test.”