Why Does Walmart Take So Long To Ship

If you have ordered anything for delivery from Target lately, chances are good that you’ve experienced some sort of delay or problem in fulfilling your final delivery. There might be some issues at the warehouse or store location fulfilling your order, and Target is likely handling those issues if they exist. However, there are several other potential causes that you may not be aware of.

We put together some of the top reasons why orders take so long to ship and be delivered to your home. Many retailers and other parts of the economy are dealing with shipping and logistics headaches. The source of these headaches could be coming from multiple directions, however. 

You may have thought of some of these already. Either way, here are the top reasons why delivery shipments are delayed, whether you’re shopping at Target or some other store:

Problems with the original order

This is probably the biggest cause of delays in shipping. When there is an error in a piece of information on your order, it may cause a problem further on down the chain. Think, for a moment, about the repercussions of an address typo on the shipping information when you made the original order.

For example, modifying just one of the numbers in your street address could result in your package being delivered to the wrong home. Depending on your relationship with your neighbor, you may never see that package. Or the typo could be bad enough to send it far away from your house.

It may also be possible that the original order was placed when the inventory records showed more inventory on hand than they actually had, and an influx of orders led to a rapid shortage of the product you ordered. In this case, the delay won’t be solved until more of the product can be obtained and could last quite some time.

Weather events or storms

Large weather events and storms with unanticipated consequences will often cause disruptions throughout the economy. For example, a major hurricane in the southeastern part of the country will have ripple effects on shipping across the country.

This is partly because of how interconnected the economy is and the unique damage and inconvenience caused by the weather event itself.

Winter weather is a common contributor to shipping delays. When road conditions get bad in some areas, driving any vehicle anywhere can become nearly impossible. If your item is coming from an area impacted by severe winter weather, you could be looking at a significant delay while they dig out.

If your order is being fulfilled via a warehouse far enough away that it requires a plane, all sorts of weather events could play a big role in when your package finally arrives on your doorstep. From large thunderstorms to blizzard conditions, the weather could have a thing to say about the final delivery date.

Difficulty keeping staff

In the context of a post-COVID environment, the American economy has been reshaped in some pretty dramatic ways. One important change in how America works is that the power dynamics have shifted noticeably towards the labor side of the equation. In other words, workers hold more power.

When everyone has a job, workers are able to leverage more or more easily walk away from a job knowing it will be easy to replace it with a new one relatively quickly.

When the unemployment rate is incredibly low and the number of available jobs remains very high, the imbalance that’s created will have downstream impacts on other business processes.

One of those key business processes is shipping. If a position remains unfilled for too long, or there are too many unfilled positions, the sheer workload could be the problem. In a post-COVID world with all the unique labor market challenges the world is facing, staffing problems remain a huge problem.

Supply chain problems

It’s hard to ship things anywhere right now. The supply chain is rife with problems, and they aren’t unique to Target or any other retailer. While there are signs that the recent headaches the supply chain has been causing are finally beginning to ease, supply chain problems will always remain a top culprit in causing shipping delays.

Suppose you ordered a product that typically isn’t held in stock and must be ordered from the supplier before fulfilling your delivery. In that case, you may face supply chain hurdles you weren’t originally imagining.

There may also be domestic supply chain issues that get between the fulfillment warehouse and your front door. Fuel prices and inflation could limit the number of trucking companies in operation, for example, which could greatly impact package delivery dates.

Holidays and time off

It’s often the case that a holiday or other company time off fell on at least one day during the window of time in which your order was supposed to be processed. Check and see if any holidays might be causing extra hiccups. Holidays can also cause a little bit of a vacation hangover when everyone gets back to work for the first day back, which might also contribute a bit to your problem.

If there was a holiday while your order was being processed, it likely impacted the timing of your package. Check and see if you missed something. It might not be a federally recognized holiday, so look at more than one holiday calendar.

Conclusion

If you’ve ever ordered anything online, you know you have some options for shipping and delivery. It’s incredibly frustrating when shipping delays get between you and being able to enjoy the product you spent your hard-earned money on.

When you are faced with a shipping delay, it could be due to several different potential problems. If you’re dealing with a shipping delay for an order you placed, it’s likely the reason is somewhere on the above list – or even a combination of items on this list. No matter what, though, it’s always frustrating to have to wait to receive something you’ve already paid for!