Target 2022

Predicting the demise of Sears & Kmart since 2017!
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ClownLoach
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Re: Target 2022

Post by ClownLoach »

Alpha8472 wrote: June 5th, 2022, 8:34 pm The concrete floor trend is not a good one. The floor is in really bad shape. It makes it seem like the store is falling apart. Target used to be known for gleaming white tiled floors and an upscale appearance compared to Walmart. Now this Target looks like a cheap broken down warehouse. Target was all about image before, and it is certainly projecting a very negative image with this store. The rundown floor reminds you that you are in one of the worst neighborhoods in San Francisco overrun with homelessness and neglect.
I was in Ikea today and they are currently covering up all of their concrete in the showroom with no-wax vinyl. As no-frills as Ikea is - even they have figured out that a bad concrete floor projects a bad brand image. This store was about 30 years old (Costa Mesa - time flies, it feels like that opened just yesterday!) and the condition of the area where the vinyl install hasn't reached yet was surprisingly poor - lots and lots of cracks, rusting, chipping, patches etc. which shows that even with a perfect build over time the concrete floors will not hold up without expensive maintenance. The only retailer I can name that knows how to properly maintain concrete is Costco - even in their original San Diego store that opened almost 50 years ago as Price Club they maintain a good floor condition. Costco clearly must have the floors diamond polished and resealed many times per year. Most retailers think that they can put in concrete then they can reduce mopping and eliminate expensive strip and wax service - the truth is that the proper care of concrete to a "showroom standard" is just as expensive.
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Re: Target 2022

Post by veteran+ »

ClownLoach wrote: June 5th, 2022, 8:06 pm Two San Francisco stores are still closing at 6pm including Metreon.

One of the two is a small format on Folsom. Looking at pictures - this is a store that was put together on a budget so low Food4Less or Walmart wouldn't approve it. Plain warehouse where they didn't even paint the rafters. I think they spent more on the outside than the inside. Horrible condition concrete floor. It must have been a test on "how cheap of a store can we build?" which is probably also what keeps it open. A true low point for the Target brand looking at those pictures. (As is typical of Google there are some drop ceiling "normal" Target pictures mixed in so ignore those) Exterior conditions look somewhere between a garbage dump and a prison.

https://goo.gl/maps/1KKhZ4njDzbw5KrW9

https://goo.gl/maps/fvWTRpfoVQEKfDYi8

https://goo.gl/maps/UT4rHJrop47fLCSa7

https://goo.gl/maps/eJ3BoqDLWGfoVtnu6

https://goo.gl/maps/RwiuGZMuZG522HZL9

https://goo.gl/maps/VUwVLPqiNpnhGG8M6

https://goo.gl/maps/i5SshWQuyAsKwxR36

ALSO - what is interesting is that just a few blocks away there is an independent "Rainbow Grocery" which looks to be a well-entrenched local market that looks like they understand the San Francisco market completely. It also has a no-frills interior, yet it also appears to sell a very diverse range of foods from basic produce to luxury/high end. The decor that they do have is perfect for San Francisco as they highlight the civil rights/diversity and inclusion movements... I'll bet this store does many times the business of the 6pm close Target... and despite being in what is a very difficult neighborhood they are open until 9pm and I didn't see a single glass case in any of the pictures either. Target clearly does not understand San Francisco, they need to pull out of the city proper and retreat to the surrounding cities where they still seem to have volume and traffic.

https://g.page/RainbowGrocery?share
NOT an attractive store BUT a wonderfully vibrant cornucopia of food!!! I would shop there for sure!!!!

Can you guess the square footage?
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Re: Target 2022

Post by BreakingThrough »

The Folsom location linked above looks almost identical to the recently opened small format Westchester (Los Angeles near LAX) CA store, terrible floors and all: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Targe ... 18.3955384

Westchester is in a former Office Depot.
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Re: Target 2022

Post by ClownLoach »

BreakingThrough wrote: June 6th, 2022, 2:10 pm The Folsom location linked above looks almost identical to the recently opened small format Westchester (Los Angeles near LAX) CA store, terrible floors and all: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Targe ... 18.3955384

Westchester is in a former Office Depot.
I was wondering if Folsom is an OfficeMax... It looks like it could have been one.

Westchester looks like they at least painted the ceiling and added more architectural detail like the round lights and hanging wood.
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Re: Target 2022

Post by Romr123 »

Romr123 wrote: June 2nd, 2022, 3:57 am They just announced a remodel of their Warren, MI store (lower middle-class store relocated about 13 years ago from an original 1990s store about 1/2 mile away). Going to put in Ulta Beauty, apparently. Really good, immaculately clean store with both Cafe and Starbucks still operating. Troy, MI store (former Greatland) is winding up it's remodel (also putting in Ulta).
Drove past this store--saw about 25-30 shipping containers in the side parking area--presuming it's the display and stock for the remodel. They had a great deal of assorted party goods (decorations/pinatas/etc) on clearance this weekend.
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Re: Target 2022

Post by storewanderer »

ClownLoach wrote: June 6th, 2022, 3:12 pm
BreakingThrough wrote: June 6th, 2022, 2:10 pm The Folsom location linked above looks almost identical to the recently opened small format Westchester (Los Angeles near LAX) CA store, terrible floors and all: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Targe ... 18.3955384

Westchester is in a former Office Depot.
I was wondering if Folsom is an OfficeMax... It looks like it could have been one.

Westchester looks like they at least painted the ceiling and added more architectural detail like the round lights and hanging wood.
1690 Folsom Street was a Sports Authority then a Goodwill.

The area is pretty industrial-like.

FoodsCo has a large store nearby. Very busy place that never has more than a couple of cashiers. It has been like this for years now, maybe decades.

Rainbow is a high volume co-op, not a conventional grocer, focusing on Natural/Organic, with a massive mix. Rainbow does not have a meat department. Rainbow has very high prices (probably higher than Whole Foods) but works with a lot of small suppliers and gets some of the best produce as a result of being a single store and getting the pick of the crop. Parking is a bit of a challenge at Rainbow, they will validate for a nearby fee parking.
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Re: Target 2022

Post by mjhale »

An interesting article detailing Target's efforts to reduce stock on things people aren't buying to make space for products people are buying as has been discussed elsewhere in this thread. Also talks about the increase in stock levels at Target and other retailers. Target speaks to wanting to carry more groceries. I wonder if this means expansion of the current PFresh format. Something tells me they aren't going full SuperTarget again. However, maybe some of these small format stores could go more grocery especially if there isn't another grocer nearby. Might get people in the store to be interested in buying other things that Target stocks.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/07/target- ... ntory.html
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Re: Target 2022

Post by storewanderer »

This is no surprise. They were handed customers during the pandemic when the malls and other competitors were ordered to be closed. Those customers stuck around for a while.

Last year toward the fall, like a lot of stores, Target's in stock levels became quite poor throughout the store. That problem continued well into 2022. Lately their stores look stocked better to me (past five or six weeks).

Target seems to have gotten so proud of itself that they got the attitude the customers will buy whatever Target wants to sell them. And that was largely true back in those months when all of the malls and Target's competitors were closed... So Target got sloppy on restocking what people wanted and got too interested in overstocking what people didn't want. And this time the customers left. Many are likely gone for good.

Add to that the jokes out there on "how to save money" blogs of folks who have spending habit problems and like to joke about going to Target for some HBA item and coming out with $100 worth of stuff and blogs that suggest people with a spending problem "quit going to Target" given with all of the inflation many folks are hurting for money at this point, and I see a lot more pain for Target going forward. Target's stock price was inflated and it was the darling of analysts. Anyone who actually shopped the stores with frequency could see what was happening in the stores did not align at all with what Wall Street thought.

I also expect it will be exposed many of Target's small size stores are losing money and most of them will end of closing. This may take a while for them to actually go forward with as the small store strategy was another thing sold to Wall Street and eaten up. Given some of these have already closed that is a sign these stores are questionable.

As far as selling more groceries goes, Target is a below average grocer. Their pricing is too high, their mix is weird, their private label program despite a lot of effort still seems weak, and their efforts on perishables/fresh products in the P-Fresh format are terrible. They have basically marginalized Super Target into nothing more than a P-Fresh with oversized coolers. Every time Target starts struggling they say they will get more into groceries. That strategy failed last time and it will fail again because they just don't get grocery. Also their stores are often not located in a manner to pick up significant grocery sales. Years ago I read Target was going to start to sell prepackaged Boar's Head products- where is it? They still don't have it.

We will see how these "markdowns" are. I am wondering if the way they issued this is a PR stunt to get people to go to the stores looking for "markdowns" (remember how Amazon did PR to market those "price cuts" at Whole Foods)? And that is another issue- Target's markdowns are largely a joke. Many sales that require multiple quantity purchases, no clothing clearance beyond 70% off which is too high for Target's bloated clothing pricing which looks more like a mall price than a discount store price, seasonal clearances that are not signed or not updated with percent off (then they are ordered to scrap everything after a certain date; if they keep a 50% off sign in front of stuff that was 90% off for the few days before being ordered to scrap it, they are losing a lot of money as customers who may have bought at 90% off assume it is only 50% off which is still too high especially with Target's bloated seasonal pricing).

A real markdown is Wal Mart. For instance, one messed up store in my area (another one) with "Manager:TBD" (had a manager two weeks ago...) seems to have decided it is time to empty the 40-50 storage trailers around the perimeter of the store. The trailers were stuffed full of, among other things, various 2021 softlines that I guess were just pulled from the shelf during season changes and not marked down properly. So now the store is blowing all of this stuff out at $1. The other night I took 12 items with regular prices totaling about $200 and paid them $12. Great deal. That is what you call a markdown.
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Re: Target 2022

Post by pseudo3d »

mjhale wrote: June 7th, 2022, 3:55 pm An interesting article detailing Target's efforts to reduce stock on things people aren't buying to make space for products people are buying as has been discussed elsewhere in this thread. Also talks about the increase in stock levels at Target and other retailers. Target speaks to wanting to carry more groceries. I wonder if this means expansion of the current PFresh format. Something tells me they aren't going full SuperTarget again. However, maybe some of these small format stores could go more grocery especially if there isn't another grocer nearby. Might get people in the store to be interested in buying other things that Target stocks.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/07/target- ... ntory.html
The problem with the small stores is that they're already in Target markets, and the markets that Target went into...some back in the 1980s and 1990s, were already medium-sized markets with an existing retail base--a few Wal-Mart and/or Kmart stores, a competitive grocery store ecosystem, and likely a small mall. I don't think that trying to add even more grocery to the small stores is a winning strategy, either. The 20k square feet stores are probably just going to end up being white elephants unless a local supermarket wants to take a chance on them.

Really, though, they need to scrap the entire PFresh program, restore SuperTarget, and reconfigure their merchandise mix to something closer to what it used to be.
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Re: Target 2022

Post by storewanderer »

Went into Target last night. I didn't see anything different than I've ever noticed there this time of year in terms of "clearance" sales, so not sure if that whole thing about taking big markdowns to clear inventory was all an attempt to get PR and make customers go to Target looking for deals or what.

The store continues to be poorly stocked in various areas including portions of grocery, basically all of pet (dry and wet food), and scattered areas of housewares, particularly bedding soft goods, are very thinly stocked. Seasonal area has poor merchandising. Clothing is an overstocked, overpriced, mess of stuff that is going to be a tough sell at 80-90% off.

The store was dirty in grocery, messy in scattered areas throughout, in the case of clothing, somewhat disorganized (but a bit better than before).

Objectively speaking, I guess the store does look better than the Wal Marts around the area that have hundreds or what feels like thousands (I know that is an exaggeration, a far exaggersion) of pallets all over the place...
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