Ahold Delhaize expands Click2Cart, signaling faster retail media shopping integration

Ahold Delhaize USA is pushing retail media closer to the sale, not just the screen. On April 28, the company expanded Click2Cart across Food Lion, The GIANT Company, Giant Food, Hannaford and Stop & Shop, letting shoppers move from a digital ad or social post straight into a cart with fewer steps.

The move matters because it turns media into measurable commerce. Ahold Delhaize USA said the integration links advertising to e-commerce sales and is meant to make shopping more convenient across its five U.S. grocery brands, which together serve 26 million customers each week. That scale makes the rollout more than a marketing tweak. It is a sign that the path from discovery to purchase is collapsing fast.

For Target, the competitive lesson lands across media, app and store operations at once. Guests who can buy directly from an ad will expect that same speed everywhere else, whether they land in a retailer app, search result or social feed. Target’s Roundel business already sits in that lane. Target says Roundel started in 2007 with five team members and has grown into an 800-plus-person team, and its 2024 annual report says the business delivered nearly $2 billion in value last year and is expected to double in size by 2030.

The pressure does not stop at the screen. If digital discovery gets easier, orders can come in faster and in larger bursts, which puts more weight on stores that have to pick, stage and hand off those orders cleanly. That is where inventory accuracy, item content and substitution logic stop being back-office issues and become customer-facing ones. A wrong photo, a stale count or a bad substitution can break the promise before the guest ever reaches the store.

The first Target roles likely to feel that change are the ones closest to execution: fulfillment team members, inventory accuracy leads, guest advocates handling Drive Up and same-day handoff, and ETLs responsible for labor, replenishment and store readiness. Merchandising teams feel it too, because the digital shelf has to match the physical one. If an item is promoted in media but missing on the floor, the ad has already done its job and the store has already failed.

Target has said its first-party digital business is now a $20 billion business, and same-day services like Drive Up and same-day delivery with Target Circle 360 grew double digits in 2024. Digital comparable sales rose 8.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2024, while same-day delivery powered by Target Circle 360 grew more than 25 percent year over year. Ahold Delhaize’s Click2Cart expansion shows where retail is headed: fewer steps, faster conversion and less room for operational mistakes.