Boars Head at Target - Arizona

[storewanderer]

Boars Head at Target actually exists. I saw it in Super Target units in Gilbert and Queen Creek. And at the bargain price point of 9.99 to 12.99 per pound. Many pre made store made sandwiches and wraps at a 4.99 price point as well.

Gilbert had excellent fresh departments, I was shocked. That entire store is the best executed Target I've seen in 15 years. Clothing looked perfect and I went right around closing time. Queen Creek more the lackluster Target grocery effort that has been consistent. Half hearted perimeter and out of stocks all over both perimeter and dry grocery. And messy clothing area too.

[ClownLoach]

Boars Head at Target actually exists. I saw it in Super Target units in Gilbert and Queen Creek. And at the bargain price point of 9.99 to 12.99 per pound. Many pre made store made sandwiches and wraps at a 4.99 price point as well.

Gilbert had excellent fresh departments, I was shocked. That entire store is the best executed Target I've seen in 15 years. Clothing looked perfect and I went right around closing time. Queen Creek more the lackluster Target grocery effort that has been consistent. Half hearted perimeter and out of stocks all over both perimeter and dry grocery. And messy clothing area too.

This is what I've been saying... they're making efforts to improve but the stores have to be high volume to execute on the limited Target payroll model that isn't much better than Walmart these days. Queen Creek is low volume so they don't get the labor and therefore do not have the full perimeter product lines and such. There wasn't any effort for over a decade. Next time I'm out there I'll compare but Menifee is probably on par with Gilbert, and Murrieta North has changed night and day from being a dump to a very well run SuperTarget on most days. If Target Financials start to improve then they'll start investing payroll in the stores again. But at least now you can say you've seen what I've seen... There is potential for the first time in a long, long time...

Unfortunately if you go to the other side of town you'll find some pretty rough low volume SuperTarget locations from what I've seen... I'm pretty sure one of them was "de-supered" in the last few years.

[storewanderer]

Boars Head at Target actually exists. I saw it in Super Target units in Gilbert and Queen Creek. And at the bargain price point of 9.99 to 12.99 per pound. Many pre made store made sandwiches and wraps at a 4.99 price point as well.

Gilbert had excellent fresh departments, I was shocked. That entire store is the best executed Target I've seen in 15 years. Clothing looked perfect and I went right around closing time. Queen Creek more the lackluster Target grocery effort that has been consistent. Half hearted perimeter and out of stocks all over both perimeter and dry grocery. And messy clothing area too.

This is what I've been saying... they're making efforts to improve but the stores have to be high volume to execute on the limited Target payroll model that isn't much better than Walmart these days. Queen Creek is low volume so they don't get the labor and therefore do not have the full perimeter product lines and such. There wasn't any effort for over a decade. Next time I'm out there I'll compare but Menifee is probably on par with Gilbert, and Murrieta North has changed night and day from being a dump to a very well run SuperTarget on most days. If Target Financials start to improve then they'll start investing payroll in the stores again. But at least now you can say you've seen what I've seen... There is potential for the first time in a long, long time...

Unfortunately if you go to the other side of town you'll find some pretty rough low volume SuperTarget locations from what I've seen... I'm pretty sure one of them was "de-supered" in the last few years.

Both stores were pretty busy when I went into them but transaction sizes at Gilbert seemed a lot larger and it had significantly more staffing.

The Wal Marts surrounding are also in excellent condition (also almost no locked up merchandise... shelves well stocked... actually hardly any locked up merchandise in any Wal Marts in that entire Mesa/Gilbert/Chandler/Apache Junction area).

What I noticed in Queen Creek Super Target is they had most of the same stuff as Gilbert but it was way less quantity in fresh grocery. For instance in Gilbert the bakery case was FULL of store decorated cakes, cupcakes, etc. (more than they'll ever sell). In Queen Creek that case had a few pieces of all those same cakes/cupcakes but then like 35%+ of the case was filled with Lofthouse Cookies (which don't even need to be refrigerated). Gilbert had what were obviously store made cake slices, the ones at Queen Creek were thaw and sell and few of them. Target has some really good store made cookies in a 6ct bag at 3.79 and in Gilbert all either 6 or 8 flavors were stocked but in Queen Creek they were out of stock on 4 flavors. Breads in store were the same at each. Meat area at Gilbert was full any looked maintained; at Queen Creek it looked 50% stocked. Really the Queen Creek Super Target looked like a below average Wal Mart Supercenter on fresh department condition. The Gilbert one looked like a very solid grocery store.

[ClownLoach]

Boars Head at Target actually exists. I saw it in Super Target units in Gilbert and Queen Creek. And at the bargain price point of 9.99 to 12.99 per pound. Many pre made store made sandwiches and wraps at a 4.99 price point as well.

Gilbert had excellent fresh departments, I was shocked. That entire store is the best executed Target I've seen in 15 years. Clothing looked perfect and I went right around closing time. Queen Creek more the lackluster Target grocery effort that has been consistent. Half hearted perimeter and out of stocks all over both perimeter and dry grocery. And messy clothing area too.

This is what I've been saying... they're making efforts to improve but the stores have to be high volume to execute on the limited Target payroll model that isn't much better than Walmart these days. Queen Creek is low volume so they don't get the labor and therefore do not have the full perimeter product lines and such. There wasn't any effort for over a decade. Next time I'm out there I'll compare but Menifee is probably on par with Gilbert, and Murrieta North has changed night and day from being a dump to a very well run SuperTarget on most days. If Target Financials start to improve then they'll start investing payroll in the stores again. But at least now you can say you've seen what I've seen... There is potential for the first time in a long, long time...

Unfortunately if you go to the other side of town you'll find some pretty rough low volume SuperTarget locations from what I've seen... I'm pretty sure one of them was "de-supered" in the last few years.

Both stores were pretty busy when I went into them but transaction sizes at Gilbert seemed a lot larger and it had significantly more staffing.

The Wal Marts surrounding are also in excellent condition (also almost no locked up merchandise... shelves well stocked... actually hardly any locked up merchandise in any Wal Marts in that entire Mesa/Gilbert/Chandler/Apache Junction area).

What I noticed in Queen Creek Super Target is they had most of the same stuff as Gilbert but it was way less quantity in fresh grocery. For instance in Gilbert the bakery case was FULL of store decorated cakes, cupcakes, etc. (more than they'll ever sell). In Queen Creek that case had a few pieces of all those same cakes/cupcakes but then like 35%+ of the case was filled with Lofthouse Cookies (which don't even need to be refrigerated). Gilbert had what were obviously store made cake slices, the ones at Queen Creek were thaw and sell and few of them. Target has some really good store made cookies in a 6ct bag at 3.79 and in Gilbert all either 6 or 8 flavors were stocked but in Queen Creek they were out of stock on 4 flavors. Breads in store were the same at each. Meat area at Gilbert was full any looked maintained; at Queen Creek it looked 50% stocked. Really the Queen Creek Super Target looked like a below average Wal Mart Supercenter on fresh department condition. The Gilbert one looked like a very solid grocery store.

That's all the three tier volume system. Target tells them how much they're allowed to make and prep each day based on the store volume. The higher volume stores are also allowed to make more items in bakery, deli etc. that are not offered at the medium and low volume stores.

The fundamental problem is that stores are far more nuanced than only three tiers of sales volume. With the computing horsepower that's available today they could easily go back and make customized store specific forecasts for everything just like Kroger and others do, which would allow for growth. Instead they make programs where they say "you can only make 10 cakes per day" but if somehow you magically start selling more jeans and toys then eventually you'll be allowed to make 15 cakes. It makes no sense but they set one "target" for production and stocking level across every category in foods right now. I guess this is what saved the entire operation in the Super locations but they could do much better than Low/Medium/High volume tiers that are based on the total volume of the departments combined. If you don't order it/make it/stock it you can't sell it.

[storewanderer]

That's all the three tier volume system. Target tells them how much they're allowed to make and prep each day based on the store volume. The higher volume stores are also allowed to make more items in bakery, deli etc. that are not offered at the medium and low volume stores.

The fundamental problem is that stores are far more nuanced than only three tiers of sales volume. With the computing horsepower that's available today they could easily go back and make customized store specific forecasts for everything just like Kroger and others do, which would allow for growth. Instead they make programs where they say "you can only make 10 cakes per day" but if somehow you magically start selling more jeans and toys then eventually you'll be allowed to make 15 cakes. It makes no sense but they set one "target" for production and stocking level across every category in foods right now. I guess this is what saved the entire operation in the Super locations but they could do much better than Low/Medium/High volume tiers that are based on the total volume of the departments combined. If you don't order it/make it/stock it you can't sell it.

Still shows that fundamental lack of understanding of the grocery business... they also need to promote their improvements better.

I completely avoided Target and Wal Mart stores on the other side of Phoenix as I didn't spend much time there and from what I saw aside from a very nice Frys Marketplace in Goodyear which was the best one I saw, I saw a lot of pretty marginal/not great stores out of the grocery chains.

[ClownLoach]

That's all the three tier volume system. Target tells them how much they're allowed to make and prep each day based on the store volume. The higher volume stores are also allowed to make more items in bakery, deli etc. that are not offered at the medium and low volume stores.

The fundamental problem is that stores are far more nuanced than only three tiers of sales volume. With the computing horsepower that's available today they could easily go back and make customized store specific forecasts for everything just like Kroger and others do, which would allow for growth. Instead they make programs where they say "you can only make 10 cakes per day" but if somehow you magically start selling more jeans and toys then eventually you'll be allowed to make 15 cakes. It makes no sense but they set one "target" for production and stocking level across every category in foods right now. I guess this is what saved the entire operation in the Super locations but they could do much better than Low/Medium/High volume tiers that are based on the total volume of the departments combined. If you don't order it/make it/stock it you can't sell it.

Still shows that fundamental lack of understanding of the grocery business... they also need to promote their improvements better.

I completely avoided Target and Wal Mart stores on the other side of Phoenix as I didn't spend much time there and from what I saw aside from a very nice Frys Marketplace in Goodyear which was the best one I saw, I saw a lot of pretty marginal/not great stores out of the grocery chains.

It's a strange methodology which used to be really common in the retail industry. In the 2000s it was a consultant driven strategy to reduce labor costs by creating "volume bands" and reducing supervision, payroll etc. in lower grossing units. Target needs to invest in the types of systems that Kroger uses which automate the processes based on actual sales and tell them to fry so many chickens, bake so much French bread, etc.

[arizonaguy]

Boars Head at Target actually exists. I saw it in Super Target units in Gilbert and Queen Creek. And at the bargain price point of 9.99 to 12.99 per pound. Many pre made store made sandwiches and wraps at a 4.99 price point as well.

Gilbert had excellent fresh departments, I was shocked. That entire store is the best executed Target I've seen in 15 years. Clothing looked perfect and I went right around closing time. Queen Creek more the lackluster Target grocery effort that has been consistent. Half hearted perimeter and out of stocks all over both perimeter and dry grocery. And messy clothing area too.

This is what I've been saying... they're making efforts to improve but the stores have to be high volume to execute on the limited Target payroll model that isn't much better than Walmart these days. Queen Creek is low volume so they don't get the labor and therefore do not have the full perimeter product lines and such. There wasn't any effort for over a decade. Next time I'm out there I'll compare but Menifee is probably on par with Gilbert, and Murrieta North has changed night and day from being a dump to a very well run SuperTarget on most days. If Target Financials start to improve then they'll start investing payroll in the stores again. But at least now you can say you've seen what I've seen... There is potential for the first time in a long, long time...

Unfortunately if you go to the other side of town you'll find some pretty rough low volume SuperTarget locations from what I've seen... I'm pretty sure one of them was "de-supered" in the last few years.

I live near a "weird" SuperTarget in Phoenix.

It opened in the late 2000s (I believe 2007 or so) and still has the original interior from when it opened (while virtually every adjacent Target in the area has been renovated into Target's newest décor package). All of the service departments are still there and operating and the store seems to do decent volume (significantly better volume than a SuperTarget I was at in Kansas City over the summer that had been renovated into the newer decor package).

The "premium" deli meat at this store is Kretschmar, which is the same as Albertsons / Safeway after they stopped selling Dietz and Watson (I preferred Dietz and Watson over Boar's Head).

My Target still has the Pizza Hut express and the cafe seating area has been turned into a pickup area (but it looks very cheaply done). There are also dozens of signs that show 10 items or less for self checkout (but both self checkout areas on both sides of the store are still open).

I'm not sure why Target hasn't renovated this store. It's one of the busier Targets around (not as busy or nice as those in the East Valley).

[storewanderer]

I live near a "weird" SuperTarget in Phoenix.

It opened in the late 2000s (I believe 2007 or so) and still has the original interior from when it opened (while virtually every adjacent Target in the area has been renovated into Target's newest décor package). All of the service departments are still there and operating and the store seems to do decent volume (significantly better volume than a SuperTarget I was at in Kansas City over the summer that had been renovated into the newer decor package).

The "premium" deli meat at this store is Kretschmar, which is the same as Albertsons / Safeway after they stopped selling Dietz and Watson (I preferred Dietz and Watson over Boar's Head).

My Target still has the Pizza Hut express and the cafe seating area has been turned into a pickup area (but it looks very cheaply done). There are also dozens of signs that show 10 items or less for self checkout (but both self checkout areas on both sides of the store are still open).

I'm not sure why Target hasn't renovated this store. It's one of the busier Targets around (not as busy or nice as those in the East Valley).

Sparks Target was of a similar era (but not Super) and was just renovated this year despite being a very busy store.

I'm not impressed with Kretschmar products; I've had too many slimy turkey and ham items from that brand though the flavored varieties do have good flavor. I tried a handfull of items from the line at Save Mart and gave up on trying any more. It isn't even close to Boar's Head, Dietz & Watson, Columbus, or the even better stuff like Distel etc.

I've also noticed a significant decline in the past few years in the quality of the Primo Taglio and Private Selection lunchmeats. Private Selection is strange- the hams still seem okay but the turkey is terrible slime. Primo Taglio seems to have rebranded a bunch of lower quality items into that brand since the Albertsons Private Label Program revolving door doesn't understand that under Safeway the Primo Taglio was intended to be a premium quality line comparable to the Boar's Head etc.