Advance Auto Parts is expanding its deal with OneRail, a platform that routes deliveries across outside carriers and gig drivers instead of owning trucks. The move will widen same-day delivery from its stores.
Advance is renting the last mile while spending heavily to rebuild its physical network. It’s a hybrid bet in the race to get a part to a mechanic's bay faster than O’Reilly or AutoZone.
How it works: OneRail sits on top of Advance’s stores and inventory as the routing brain. “Advance determines where inventory is located, and OneRail helps optimize how orders and inventory move through the network,” OneRail CEO Bill Catania told Supply Chain Dive.
In practice, the platform can send one driver to several stores to fill an order, or swap in a faster carrier than the scheduled run.
The partnership runs back to 2022 and now spans more than 4,000 Advance locations.
Why speed is the lever: Advance’s best customers are professional installers. An idle repair bay waiting on a part is a direct cost to the shop. That makes time-to-part a competitive weapon, not just convenience for DIY customers.
The strategy appears to be working. Advance cut aggregate pro-customer delivery time from 50 minutes to 40, CEO Shane O'Kelly said. It also lifted in-store availability from the low 90s to the high 90%, Forbes reported.
The build behind it: The orchestration bet rides on top of a heavy physical rebuild, now nearing the end of a multi-year consolidation.
Distribution centers cut from 38 to 16
Market hubs stock 75,000 to 85,000 SKUs each and serve 60 to 90 nearby stores
The company has 35 hubs running today, with a target of 60 by 2027
Rent versus own: The deal highlights two different approaches to the same-day parts race. Advance rents the last mile through orchestration. AutoZone is doing the opposite, building toward nearly 300 owned mega hubs with more than 100,000 SKUs each. The capital-heavy strategy pushed its inventory up 10.8% year over year as of its most recent quarter.
