Would you allow a stranger to enter your house, rummage through your closets and cupboards if it meant that your next shopping experience might be better? That’s the idea behind Target’s latest initiative to change the way it gets to know customers. 

The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports that Target CEO Brian Cornell and other executives of the retailer have been paying home visits to some customers in an effort to better understand consumers’ food choices, fashion trends, and shopping habits.

The so-called “fundamental ethnography work” has, so far, focused on the homes of single millennials and Hispanic moms in various cities across the nation.

Cornell’s visits are part of Target’s push to be more competitive with other retailers like Amazon who are better able to interact with the increasingly tech-savvy consumers.

“It’s not just about Mom anymore,” Cornell tells the Star Tribune of reconfiguring the retailer’s idea of typical customers, who used to be a white soccer mom, driving a minivan and living in the suburbs.

Now, the company’s focus has broadened to include consumers who are more urban-centric, and increasingly Hispanic.

In other areas of business, Cornell say the company will beef up its IT workforce by about 1,000 employees in an effort to increase its website functionality and mobile presence.

Target CEO Brian Cornell visiting homes of customers [StarTribune]

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