Target Reducing Hours To 9-6 PM in San Francisco

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Alpha8472
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Target Reducing Hours To 9-6 PM in San Francisco

Post by Alpha8472 »

Target has recently reduced hours at most of its San Francisco stores to 9-6 PM. The only store open later is the one at Stonestown Galleria which is open on weekdays 7-10 PM and weekends 8-10 PM.

The other stores in surrounding areas seem to be unaffected.

One Target on Ocean Avenue in San Francisco just closed permanently this week. Target has not given any explanation for the change in hours.

However, we can speculate on the videos of homeless people riding bikes into stores and stealing everything in sight without anyone stopping them.

Perhaps this is just one step toward Target abandoning the city. Target only entered San Francisco in 2012.

I am sure the CVS Pharmacies inside the stores are upset over the restricted hours. It is very inconvenient to try to make it to Target before 6 PM if you are working a regular 8-5 job.

Costco in San Francisco is still doing booming business and is open regular hours.
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Re: Target Reducing Hours To 9-6 PM in San Francisco

Post by Super S »

9-6 sounds more like the hours of a struggling Kmart. Seriously. If Target has to close that early, it hints at issues with shoplifting or possibly not being able to hire enough staff.

Reduce hours, then close the stores claiming they are not profitable. If the store closes at 6 you eliminate a big chunk of your customer base that stops in after work...it's hard to be profitable if the store isn't open.
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Re: Target Reducing Hours To 9-6 PM in San Francisco

Post by rwsandiego »

The Store Directory doesn't even list San Francisco. You have to search for "San Francisco, CA" to find the stores. this makes me wonder whether the stores are being staged for closure. The Folsom location isn't exactly in a "walkable" neighborhood. Bush Street is in the Financial District, so I can see where this store would not have much after-work business. Mission Street is walkable, but I hear the SoMa district has gotten somewhat dangerous again, which would discourage people from walking there at night. Geary Blvd surprises me, as it is located in a somewhat car-friendly neighborhood but, honestly, getting into the parking lot is a royal pain. that leaves Stonestown.

This armchair retail strategist (and Monday morning quarterback) thinks Target didn't understand the market. San Francisco is not very car-friendly, so locating stores the require customers to drive there is a bad idea. If memory serves, San Francisco's "big box" ordinance prevents chain stores from opening in many neighborhoods, which prevents them from opening the number of stores as in Chicago, where it seems the mini-Targets are popping up everywhere. Lastly, there's crime. Even if the homeless weren't shoplifting, congregating in parking lots and entrances doesn't attract shoppers.
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Re: Target Reducing Hours To 9-6 PM in San Francisco

Post by storewanderer »

As of right now the Stonestown location is also showing as 9 AM to 6 PM.

Without going too into my feeling about what has happened in San Francisco at large, which I find to be very sad, I think the mini-Target Stores simply were not productive enough to justify their costs. This is very high cost real estate (for now) and you need to do a serious sales volume to make it work. In some cases they may have seen being present in those locations as more of a billboard for the company as opposed to a single store attempting to be profitable but with all of the theft, security, staffing difficulties, and other issues it may have turned into a situation where it just isn't worth it anymore. Remember how CVS has abruptly closed stores in San Francisco? This seems like the same thing over again.

I find it odd the Mission Store cut hours to 6 PM; previously there was quite a bit going on there at night. There is a movie theater in that same shopping complex as well.

https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/Ta ... 284219.php

https://abc7news.com/target-hours-san-f ... /10851794/

San Francisco has done everything it can to promote theft and make it easy for shoplifters. At this point the thieves have become very aggressive to the point of being dangerous. It is no longer about folks taking a few items off the shelf and running out.

I would say they can start by banning reusable bags and backpacks from being allowed inside the store, and going back to the old bagging model where bagged merchandise in a Target bag=paid merchandise and it was easy to watch people exiting, but I think this has gotten so far out of control and the thieves so aggressive that it may not matter. Reusable bags are constantly used for theft; I witnessed it the other night here in NV.

City of San Francisco and news media: you blew off Walgreens store closures and incidents as a non-issue. Will you pay attention now that it is Target commenting about the same issues? What will it take? Or will the city just end up having a lot fewer stores...

The issue here also is Target and Walgreens could cut hours, close stores, etc. But the people causing trouble will just move to whatever stores are open. The Trader Joes, the Safeway, whatever they can find open, they will go target. So what happens then? The grocer can lock up all of the liquor and HBA/drug I guess.

Target has some of the best loss prevention technology in retail and frankly if this is too much for Target to control, this situation is pretty incredible. This is quite possibly the most dire retail theft situation ever seen in the US.
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Re: Target Reducing Hours To 9-6 PM in San Francisco

Post by Alpha8472 »

If Target threatens to close all of their stores in San Francisco, it might make the city take action. They should post police cars at the stores and have officers ready to arrest thieves. The District Attorney needs to prosecute or else the city will lose all of the tax revenue when Target leaves the city.

In the entire city, the issue of being attacked by rampaging and violent homeless people is one that most people will agree on. The police need to take action instead of never showing up.

They need to clear the streets and make these people go somewhere else.
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Re: Target Reducing Hours To 9-6 PM in San Francisco

Post by rwsandiego »

Alpha8472 wrote: July 2nd, 2021, 4:18 pm...They need to clear the streets and make these people go somewhere else.
I think that's part of the problem - for years San Francisco brushed its criminal element somewhere else (like Oakland) instead of dealing with it. Now the day of reckoning is here and they aren't doing anything.

Target closing its stores might not get the city to act. It might take a cratering of tourism and convention business.
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Re: Target Reducing Hours To 9-6 PM in San Francisco

Post by storewanderer »

rwsandiego wrote: July 2nd, 2021, 8:26 pm
Alpha8472 wrote: July 2nd, 2021, 4:18 pm...They need to clear the streets and make these people go somewhere else.
I think that's part of the problem - for years San Francisco brushed its criminal element somewhere else (like Oakland) instead of dealing with it. Now the day of reckoning is here and they aren't doing anything.

Target closing its stores might not get the city to act. It might take a cratering of tourism and convention business.
It appears to me the criminal element kept growing and eventually got to be too much for Oakland to hold so now it has spilled to San Francisco and there is no outlet for it (sure they'll keep it off of Nob Hill and keep it out of Marin County somehow).

If the Target in Mission is now considered not safe, that is pretty troubling. I've stayed in Union Square area quite a few times over the years, also once in the newer Intercontinental which is very close to that Mission Target. Every time I've stayed in Union Square I've gone out at night walking around and never felt particularly unsafe, certainly worth knowing what is going on, but went into various stores and had no issues.

Also... Stonestown and Geary having issues and justifying closing at 6 PM? That surprises me.

Last time in San Francisco I did stay up Nob Hill in the older Intercontinental instead of down in Union Square area as I wanted to try that hotel out, but I did arrive via BART in Union Square and walked up there, and I did notice things down in Union Square area seemed to have declined from before, and I didn't get into quite as many stores as usual being in that distant location.

It will be interesting to see what happens. Target has invested a lot of resources into getting these stores in San Francisco and this is not cheap real estate. If offices do not refill, and residents flock out of the city, these stores are not going to be viable. I think the idea 3 years ago was the big cities were going to attract more and more young people to live and work in them... now it seems with COVID more of the paying customers left cities and are not running back but the criminals stuck around and took over. This will not help retailers in these cities that were already struggling with "issues."
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Re: Target Reducing Hours To 9-6 PM in San Francisco

Post by storewanderer »

Alpha8472 wrote: July 2nd, 2021, 4:18 pm If Target threatens to close all of their stores in San Francisco, it might make the city take action. They should post police cars at the stores and have officers ready to arrest thieves. The District Attorney needs to prosecute or else the city will lose all of the tax revenue when Target leaves the city.

In the entire city, the issue of being attacked by rampaging and violent homeless people is one that most people will agree on. The police need to take action instead of never showing up.

They need to clear the streets and make these people go somewhere else.
I wonder if the city would take action if Target were to threaten to pull out, or the vocal anti chain fringe element in San Francisco would say "good" to Target closing. These are the same folks who push the lax laws and other problems that have plagued the city.

That's okay, folks can just order online and get packages delivered I guess. Great for the environment. Hopefully the criminal element doesn't decide to aggressively focus its attention on package delivery - focusing on the delivery vans/drivers, breaking into the Amazon Lockers, etc. Will the city do anything about that?
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Re: Target Reducing Hours To 9-6 PM in San Francisco

Post by veteran+ »

Has anyone performed a deep professional "root cause analysis" of the issues?

It seems to me that it is way more complicated than what has been proferred here so far.

Just sayin..............................

;-)
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Re: Target Reducing Hours To 9-6 PM in San Francisco

Post by storewanderer »

veteran+ wrote: July 3rd, 2021, 10:03 am Has anyone performed a deep professional "root cause analysis" of the issues?

It seems to me that it is way more complicated than what has been proferred here so far.

Just sayin..............................

;-)
What we are faced with at this point would be the effects:
1. Stores only open 9 AM to 6 PM during the summer when it isn't dark until close to 9 PM - this causes various effects. Customers who work a normal 8-5 job can barely get to the store to shop anymore.
2. Safety issues with the stores causing a potential danger to all involved

Also, I read one of the Safeways now has to keep all of their carts inside because within a week 160 carts were stolen from outside the store. So they put big sticks on every cart so the carts cannot go through the doors (if these thieves are truly aggressive they could probably lift/flip the carts to get them out the door- but these sticks look very very tall so maybe not). I have never seen a grocery stores do this but have seen some dollar stores and drug stores do this.
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