Brick-and-mortar retail is in trouble. You can tell that from reports on this very site of retail bankruptcies and store closings, and from the number of Amazon boxes piled in front of your and your neighbors’ front doors. Today, Target executives shared discouraging news of falling sales and profits at its investors day event, and explained that the chain’s way forward is to imitate Walmart. [More]
brian cornell
Target Isn’t Going To Have Full-Service Grocery Stores, Still Wants To Sell More
By 9.15.16
Target CEO Brian Cornell has a message for you if you’ve tried to buy groceries at the discount chain in the past and found the selection or products disappointing: things are better now, and you should give the section another chance soon. Unless you want sushi or rotisserie chickens. Then you should go somewhere else. [More]
Target Keeps Building Tiny Stores, Tries To Succeed Where Walmart Failed
By 9.14.16
For the first half of this decade, Walmart experimented with mini-stores: tiny Walmarts that fanned out across the country, serving markets too small to support a full-size store. The experiment ultimately failed, and Walmart closed all of its Express stores at the beginning of 2016. Target, however, wants to take over the business of building tiny big boxes, planning to build at least 25 more through 2017. [More]
Target Sales Are Down Because Customers Are Fixing Up Their Homes Instead
By 8.17.16
Target’s first comparable stores sales decrease in two years is partly due to the retailer’s problems with actually selling groceries, but the drop also reflects problems with the national retail landscape as a whole. Target expected sales to increase slightly, but instead, Americans are apparently paying for experiences rather than stuff, heading to buy clothes at off-price stores, and buying supplies to remodel our homes. [More]
New Target CEO Promises To Not Turn Retailer Into A Grocery Store
By 8.15.14
Several years back, we started hearing complaints from Target shoppers that their local stores were eschewing large chunks of floor space that had been dedicated to things like home furnishings and housewares in order to make room for more groceries. Many expressed concern that their beloved quirky-but-affordable retailer was going to become a supermarket chain that also sold towels and sweatpants. The company’s new CEO is now trying to convince those worried customers that Target is not undergoing some radical shift. [More]
