I ordered from Walmart, Target, and Home Depot to see how their 3-hour deliveries stack up

Home Depot's three-hour delivery service is off to a strong start.

Dominick Reuter/Business Insider Home Depot just launched nationwide three-hour delivery, joining big box competitors Target and Walmart.

The move raises the stakes on same-day fulfillment as retailers try to win more e-commerce sales.

I ordered paper towels to test the speeds of all three, and Home Depot won in every measure except one.

Sometimes you just need it now.

Retailers are stepping up their same-day delivery options , with fulfillment speeds that would have seemed impossible just a few years ago.

The latest entrant to the competition is Home Depot, which launched a nationwide 3-hour delivery option last week.

It joins big box competitors Target and Walmart in offering a 3-hour option supported by their own retail store fleets.

To see how the three services stack up, I came up with a simple test: order the same item from all three stores at exactly the same moment and see which one arrived first.

My house is about 3.5 miles from each store, and I created brand new shopper profiles for this test.

I considered including Amazon as a benchmark, but the earliest available same-day delivery to my address was more than 5 hours later.

It ended up being fairly challenging to find a low-cost item that all three retailers had in stock and would still meet delivery minimums.

My initial plan was to order a four-pack of Charmin toilet paper from each chain, but Target's same-day services require a basket size of at least $35 to complete a transaction, no exceptions.

Ready, set, go! Dominick Reuter/Business Insider To include Target, I switched to a 12-pack of Bounty paper towels for $33.49, plus a pack of disinfecting wipes, nudging the subtotal to $37.48.