Some news for our friends shopping north of the border, or any Americans who wander into the country looking for a bit of home: Target is pulling up the stakes, closing all 133 stores in the country and rolling out of Canada, after the company said there was just no way to make Target Canada profitable anytime soon. [More]
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Free Shipping Is Expensive For Retailers, Bad For Profits
By 1.2.15
Customers love free shipping, but retailers do not. Well, that’s not quite true: retailers love the sales that the availability of free shipping drives, but it isn’t very good for their profit margins. While customers have become used to free shipping and view it as the default for shopping online, retailers still haven’t been able to figure out how to provide free shipping without losing a lot of money. [More]
Is In-Store Pickup Any Faster Than Just Shopping At The Store?
By 12.30.14
For years, an increasing number of retailers have been pushing their “buy online, pickup in store” (BOPIS, for all you acronym lovers) option as a expedient option that offers the convenience of online shopping without the hassle of having to search the aisles. But is it really any faster than traditional bricks-and-mortar shopping? [More]
Target Shoppers Get Go-Ahead To Sue Retail Giant Over 2013 Hack
By 12.19.14
A year after Target discovered it was the, well, target of one of the largest retailer hacks ever, and a few weeks after banks got permission to sue the corporation, Target shoppers have now gotten the all-clear for their lawsuits, too. [More]
Why Are Big-Box Stores Pricing Barbies Differently By Race?
By 12.10.14
Are pricing algorithms racist? That’s not really possible, and several big retailers are blaming “pricing errors” for discrepancies in the prices of Barbie dolls of different ethnicities. Shoppers interested in a doll in a figure-skating costume, for example, have to pay $1.99 extra at Walmart for a doll with darker skin and black hair. How does that happen? [More]
In Wake Of Target Ruling, Will Retailers Scale Back Security So They Can Plead Ignorance?
By 12.10.14
Last week, a federal court in Minnesota gave the go-ahead to a lawsuit filed against Target by several banks trying to claim damages from the massive 2013 payment systems breach. Now, some worry that the court’s decision could lead retailers to go with simpler, perhaps less secure, systems rather than risk missing a red flag on a more complicated one. [More]
Target, Where Holiday Menu Specials Actually Cost You More Money
By 12.2.14
The jingle bells are jingling, the Santas are ho-hoing and it’s officially okay for everyone to be in the holiday spirit. But while it’s always nice of businesses to try to offer special deals for holiday shoppers, Target might need to rethink how it approaches the idea of a “deal.” [More]
Some Workers Step Up, Love Working On Thanksgiving
By 11.26.14
While many commentators (this site included) have complained about the ascent of Brown Thursday and how the shopping frenzy has gradually devoured the holiday once known as Thanksgiving, perhaps we’re being unfair. There are workers who enjoy spending Thanksgiving Day on the job, and who volunteer for duty. [More]
Warm Up For Black Friday: Here’s A Pop Quiz On The Best Deals
By 11.26.14
You can’t depend on retailers to tell you whether you’re really getting a good deal or not. Is $89 the cheapest that you can find an Apple TV for? Is a $199 Dyson vacuum cleaner too good to pass up? You can make sure that your deal-finding senses are finely tuned and ready for Black Friday with an interactive deal quiz over at CNN. Some deals are exceptional, and others compare unfavorably to other recent sales, sometimes at the same retailer. [CNN] [More]
Target App Now Tells You If Items Are Available In-Store And Where To Find Them
By 11.18.14
Have you ever made a shopping list, driven to the store and then realized they were out of certain items? Apparently, Target has an answer to that frustrating experience in the form of an app update that can tell consumers what’s in stock and where to find those items inside the store. [More]
Target Opens 6 p.m. Thanksgiving Day, Says Black-Friday-Like Deals Start This Week
By 11.10.14
Who needs to wait for Black Friday when you can apparently start racking up similar deals weeks in advance? Target joined other retailers like Walmart in announcing its holiday shopping plans, which include early access to deals and opening the doors at 6 p.m. Thanksgiving night. [More]
Target Closing More Stores This Year Than In Last Two Years Combined
By 11.5.14
Yesterday, Target announced that it would be closing 11 underperforming stores by Feb. 2015, which only represents a small fraction of the retailer’s 1,800 stores in the U.S. But that brings this year’s total number of Target closures to 19, nearly five times the number of stores shuttered the previous year. [More]
This Target Call Of Duty Promo Is Either Not Bad Or Chintziest Thing Ever
By 10.31.14
The new Call of Duty game comes out next week, and various retailers are doing what they can to lure in buyers. For example, Best Buy and others are putting the game on sale at the exact same time nationwide so that the West Coast doesn’t have to wait hours to gripe about the multiplayer server’s inevitable crash, and Target’s Canadian stores are offering what is either a not-horrible Dorito’s tie-in or the cheapest giveaway we’ve seen in years. [More]
Forget Black Friday, Holiday Shopping Season Starts Tomorrow
By 10.31.14
While children and parents around the country are sitting around, regretting the huge amount of sugar and chocolate consumed tonight, the folks at Walmart, Amazon and other stores are not only busting out the holiday decorations, but reducing prices and offering short-term large-scale sales for early holiday shoppers. [More]
Target Baiting Holiday Shoppers With Free Shipping On All Items This Season
By 10.22.14
There’s nary a bit of frost on the ground and yet it’s time for retailers to start gearing up for the holidays. Getting off to a running start today is Target, announcing that starting today it’ll offer free holiday shipping on everything it sells online for the first time. [More]
Do You Ever Shop Anywhere? Congratulations: Your Data Will Be Hacked
By 10.10.14
By the numbers alone, basically everyone in the country has been the victim of at least one data breach in the past year, if not more. 106 million Americans had their card data stolen from Target and Home Depot alone, to say nothing of the data breaches at Jimmy John’s, Dairy Queen, P.F. Chang’s, UPS, Albertsons, Jewel-Osco, ACME, Shaw’s, Sally Beauty Supply, Goodwill, some Marriott hotels, Neiman Marcus, and Michael’s craft stores. And that isn’t even considering other breaches that were too small to make national headlines, or that simply haven’t been discovered yet. [More]
Target Learns To Round Up, Or Is Maybe Just Confused
By 9.22.14
This fan at Target has a regular price of $15.99, but was advertised in the chain’s circular as $16. “Apparently they are proud to advertise a $0.01 price hike,” writes tipster Bob. Is that it? Or has Target started to round prices up in order to make them more logical? [More]
Report: Home Depot Victim Of Same Malware Used In Target Hack
By 9.8.14
While Home Depot continues to drag its feet on confirming reports that its in-store payment systems were recently hacked, it looks like the retailer might have fallen victim to the same malicious software used to steal credit/debit card and personal information for more than 100 million Target customers in 2013. [More]
