Advance Auto Parts is working to improve its fulfillment, offering same-day delivery for automotive parts and accessories.
Ron Gilbert, senior vice president of supply chain at Advance Auto Parts, told Digital Commerce 360 via email that the retailer uses a fulfillment strategy focusing on its market hubs. Those hubs serve as an additional distribution node between distribution centers and stores, he said. Gilbert took over the role on Dec. 22, 2025, according to a company statement that month.
The hubs carry about 75,000 to 85,000 SKUs, according to Gilbert. He called that “a significantly expanded assortment.” That assortment enables faster fulfillment across a service area of typically 60 to 90 stores within its radius and allows us to expand assortment depth, he added.
“In today’s environment, it’s not enough to simply have access to parts; customers expect these parts to be available quickly, often within the same day, and delivered within a window that supports their operations,” Gilbert told Digital Commerce 360. “Our market hub fulfillment strategy helps support the needs of our stores and customers.”
Advance Auto Parts is No. 90 in the Top 1000 Database. The market research tool tracks North America’s largest online retailers, ranking them by annual ecommerce sales and more. Advance Auto Parts is also the highest-ranking retailer in the database’s Automotive Parts & Accessories category.
How Advance Auto Parts offers same-day delivery
Gilbert said this Advance Auto Parts has continued to grow sales at the stores in its strongest markets. Combined with the market hub fulfillment strategy, Advance Auto Parts has improved its speed, availability and inventory efficiency, enabling same-day delivery, Gilbert said.
“Ultimately, we leverage stores as the customer-facing fulfillment point, supported by DCs and market hubs, to deliver better service levels,” Gilbert explained.
He gave an example that at the start of 2025, Advance Auto Parts averaged more than 50 minutes in delivery time to its Pro customers. By the end of that year, the retailer had cut more than 10 minutes from its average delivery times. It remains focused on consistently providing a predictable time for its Pro customers, according to Gilbert.
He said Advance Auto Parts has spent the past two years consolidating its network of distribution centers to 16 locations from nearly 40. At the same time, it has maintained strong service levels across its more than 4,300 stores, Gilbert noted. And in 2025, he added, Advance Auto Parts invested about $90 million on upgrades to more than 1,600 stores. He said those upgrades have improved in-store execution and fulfillment readiness.
For its Pro customers, Advance Auto Parts delivers “substantially all our orders directly from our stores using our own vehicle fleet,” Gilbert stated. Its goal is to ensure it completes deliveries within 40 minutes of placing an order.
For its do-it-yourself (DIY) customers, Advance Auto Parts offers buy online, pick up in store (BOPIS) flexibility for online orders, he said.
“However, ecommerce is a very small portion of our business,” Gilbert told Digital Commerce 360. “In addition, we also offer same-day delivery capabilities at a fee through third-party providers for our DIY customers.”
How has Advance Auto Parts improved its supply chain?
In June, Advance Auto Parts announced an expanded partnership with OneRail on artificial intelligence (AI)-powered fulfillment orchestration.
Gilbet said other key priorities for Advance Auto Parts have been improving the availability of its hard parts and strengthening its fulfillment across its network. He said the retailer completed a rollout of its assortment framework across all its stores in 2025 — and ahead of schedule.
“Leveraging proprietary assortment planning tools enabled our ability to make data-driven decisions and quickly adapt SKU requirements to local market needs,” Gilbert said.
He said among his first projects after starting at Advance Auto Parts was to conduct a review of its distribution center workflows. Through the review, he said, the retailer “we’ve identified some meaningful opportunities to standardize workflows.” It will systematically implement them through the remainder of 2026, he said.
“We were able to identify everything from receiving to picking to outbound processes,” Gilbert shared. “We expect productivity savings from bringing greater consistency and rigor to those operations in 2027 and beyond.”
He said Advance Auto Parts ended 2025 with 33 market hubs. It expects to open another 10 to 15 by the end of this year. That would move it closer toward its goal of operating 60 market hub locations by 2027.
“Our market hubs improve same-day parts availability, creating incremental opportunities for us to capture market share,” Gilbert said. “Taken together, it is really about execution and intentionally leveraging a more modernized, multi-echelon network to improve consistency, availability and efficiency across the system.”
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