Archived Beware

[Day Tripper]

well, sales comp is fine, but we are talking same store sales. In 2007, we opened 6 new stores within two years in our district. I watched growth of new stores, roughly we were opening 200 new stores yearly nation wide. For the last two years I worked, that figure was zero new stores ( yes, I know about the remodels ). New stores are often in new developments, new population growth. Spot has been flat on that, they don't have the money for new big box stores and haven't. The data breach was a massive hit, the transgender stance was as well. We had protestors out front at my last store.

Target Canada was something like a $6 billion hit. The whole project was doomed from day one because of idiotic planning at HQ. Sears and Canadian Tire knew our exact addresses and spent something like $200 million preparing to counter Target before we opened the first store.

They started the small box idea. good idea, but not the same as a 120,000 to 180,000 sq ft store. My last store was a new one, added $30 million in sales where Target had zero presence before. I opened two of the three stores I worked. The first was in 2003, that area has exploded, one of the top population growth areas in America.

I saw stock price in the $55 range in 2003, it sank to around $24 in 2009 when I bought in. Sold out before the data breach scandal.

I knew the VP that walked out with no notice. It was never publicly announced, I saw where that person went to work for a few months later, just googled his name.

I know much, much more than I am going to get into here. I was just trying to suggest that all look out for yourselves.

 

[BackroomAlpha]

but its not because Larry the flow TM couldn’t finish a Uboat in 45 minutes.

This is my most liked statement I've ever read on TBR lol

 

[HiddenPenguin]

I knew the VP that walked out with no notice. It was never publicly announced, I saw where that person went to work for a few months later, just googled his name.

I know much, much more than I am going to get into here. I was just trying to suggest that all look out for yourselves.

All this mysterious hinting has really opened my eyes...

 

[phibot]

It's really important that the company deal with the issues in grocery

My grocery dept has had 3 TLs fired in 3 years for "underperforming" in the same ways.

I don't think Target will ever get grocery right. They look at the department relative to the other departments. Of course the department isn't going to drop several hundred $$$ transactions alone like Electronics and A&A can, but that's still no reason to try to run the single most technical department with a skeleton crew.

Everyone likes "setting the store up for success," but Target as a whole is setting grocery up to fail.

 

[HRZone]

My grocery dept has had 3 TLs fired in 3 years for "underperforming" in the same ways.

I don't think Target will ever get grocery right. They look at the department relative to the other departments. Of course the department isn't going to drop several hundred $$$ transactions alone like Electronics and A&A can, but that's still no reason to try to run the single most technical department with a skeleton crew.

Everyone likes "setting the store up for success," but Target as a whole is setting grocery up to fail.

And I get it, the profit margins and grocery are small compared to what we get from clothing and make up but if you're going to do something you might as well do it right. If grocery is just about adding to basket size let's admit that stop stressing the hell out of her food team leads and team members.

Don't get me started on the 2017, 50 Cent raise from consumables team member to food team member, by the way for that $0.50 I'm going to need your whole soul

 

[IWishIKnew]

Grocery makes up a huge percentage of our sales. Even if the profitability is lower, if you can bring people in to do their grocery shopping, they will pick up other stuff while they're there. I agree that the pace is unsustainable and modernization will come to a head at some point and need to be dealt with, but the reason I think Target is in a better spot to succeed is they really are trying to think outside the big box store. Order pick up, SFS (as much as I generally dislike sending store inventory out of the store, particularly when it comes to in-demand items during the holidays), Shipt, etc.--at least they show they're not afraid to do new things. Some will work. Some won't. At least they're trying to find ways to compete with Amazon rather than just giving up.

Nobody knows how things will turn out, obviously, but Target has outlasted its parent company and been around awhile, so I don't think they'll go away any time soon.

 

[Ashfromoldsite]

We need to creatively remodel all supers to Pfresh. Go back to the trendy stuff that 35 yo moms want that are home decor. Less food. I don’t know if we should just close off that part of the store and lease it out, or what. But grocery is not profitable. Never has been. Never will be.

 

[Ashfromoldsite]

Said executives at toys r us a year ago

Tru was already in debt. We are not.

 

[Times Up]

I don’t know if we should just close off that part of the store and lease it out, or what. But grocery is not profitable

Like Kohl's partnering with Aldi's.

 

[tellmeaboutatime]

I don't think Target is going to close. I do believe a merger may be on the horizon at some point though. The company has made some really bone head moves (Canada anyone?) Spot has lost its sparkle. Now its Walmart in red. They both try to keep the majority of their team members under 30 hours (no insurance) Don't mind turnover(Keep wages low) The cleanliness standards are pathetic. What used to be a clean easy to shop store is now an obstacle course around pallets and a single cashier and 8 self check outs (more cut hours for workers) If this is who they want to be thats okay, just own it. Targay has become Targhetto

 

[Antennae]

Target Canada was something like a $6 billion hit. The whole project was doomed from day one because of idiotic planning at HQ. Sears and Canadian Tire knew our exact addresses and spent something like $200 million preparing to counter Target before we opened the first store.

Regardless of the ad spending, Target didn't do itself any favors by the shelves looking exactly like Zellers during their liquidation. Not to mention having prices higher than Walmart in markets what were able to cross the border to see that Target and Walmart are competitors, not different tiered retail.

 

[Bosch]

Regardless of the ad spending, Target didn't do itself any favors by the shelves looking exactly like Zellers during their liquidation. Not to mention having prices higher than Walmart in markets what were able to cross the border to see that Target and Walmart are competitors, not different tiered retail.

Yep, I brought up Zeller's the other day to compare what we were looking like..

 

[RhettB]

Grocery will always be an issue. The first Super opened in 1995. If they haven't worked out the kinks yet, its not likely to happen.

 

[Not My Name]

Grocery will always be an issue. The first Super opened in 1995. If they haven't worked out the kinks yet, its not likely to happen.

The biggest problem is they don't want to invest the payroll to properly run it and that's almost always been the case... it's not a matter of "not working out the kinks" or not figuring it out, or being too stupid, or whatever... the problem is they don't want to staff it.

Compare the staffing on the grocery side of any super target to an actual grocery store... haha... what a joke.

If I walk into a Publix, while not counting cashiers and service desk, I'm likely to see 15-20 employees if I walk around... on the floor, behind the counters, it's usually not hard to find someone... if I walk around the grocery side of a super target I might see 5 and they're almost all behind a counter... Target flat out doesn't want to staff their stores... they're trying to run grocery like they run regular hardlines, but the problem lies with the fact that there's a way higher workload in grocery, if you want to do it correctly, that is, and not treat the product as if it never expires.

Target wants the rewards of having grocery without enduring any of the pain of having grocery. I honestly think they staff their grocery even less than Wal-Mart does... and Wal-Mart has an even easier time while neglecting grocery because their volume in food is so much higher... people around the country associate cheap grocery bills with Wal-Mart... so as the food flies off the shelves, they don't need super effective processes to ensure freshness.

 

[Not My Name]

My grocery dept has had 3 TLs fired in 3 years for "underperforming" in the same ways.

I don't think Target will ever get grocery right. They look at the department relative to the other departments. Of course the department isn't going to drop several hundred $$$ transactions alone like Electronics and A&A can, but that's still no reason to try to run the single most technical department with a skeleton crew.

Everyone likes "setting the store up for success," but Target as a whole is setting grocery up to fail.

Bingo.

 

[IWishIKnew]

If I walk into a Publix, while not counting cashiers and service desk, I'm likely to see 15-20 employees if I walk around...

Publix must be fantastic for staffing, because that's way more than we'd see at a full grocery store around here. For a full grocery store, with as much square footage as an entire Target store, we'll see maybe 12 (5 or so people behind the deli counter, 1-2 people behind the bakery counter and 2-4 people on the floor). So, similar to what you'd see walking around a Target. And no call boxes or phones or any way to bring someone to you if you have a question. I agree that Target could always put more people into grocery, but when you compare personnel to square footage, Target seems pretty on par to grocery stores around here, if not more so, because sales floor TMs will always come, if needed.

 

[seasonaldude]

Publix must be fantastic for staffing, because that's way more than we'd see at a full grocery store around here. For a full grocery store, with as much square footage as an entire Target store, we'll see maybe 12 (5 or so people behind the deli counter, 1-2 people behind the bakery counter and 2-4 people on the floor). So, similar to what you'd see walking around a Target. And no call boxes or phones or any way to bring someone to you if you have a question. I agree that Target could always put more people into grocery, but when you compare personnel to square footage, Target seems pretty on par to grocery stores around here, if not more so, because sales floor TMs will always come, if needed.

Publix is different. It's a private corporation. Only current employees are eligible to purchase its stock. As a result they don't mess around when it comes to staffing and hours.

 

[Far from newbie]

I think kohl’s has the right idea: farm out grocery just like we farmed out pharmacy. It allows them to offer customers the convenience of grocery in its stores without accepting any expense of running or risk of profit loss .
But a slippery slope - we could become a mini mall: cvs pharmacy, a grocery chain for food, Best Buy electronics, FAO S toys.....target would only deal with what we really make money on - softlines.

 

[CleanMyBackRoOm]

This is hilarious... I love when ex TM's claim the sky is falling because their buddies probably jacked something up at their store and got a coaching and now they're raging with hatred.
There's not a single shred of evidence that the company is headed to the shitter except for the belief of TM's who don't want to work hard or claim they work hard when they're moving like sloths and just going through the motions of a daily job.

 

[CleanMyBackRoOm]

I think kohl’s has the right idea: farm out grocery just like we farmed out pharmacy. It allows them to offer customers the convenience of grocery in its stores without accepting any expense of running or risk of profit loss .
But a slippery slope - we could become a mini mall: cvs pharmacy, a grocery chain for food, Best Buy electronics, FAO S toys.....target would only deal with what we really make money on - softlines.

In my region Target is dabbling with this... we're bringing in local merch like crazy. Which I think is fantastic... it's an even better reason to love Target. They're giving small business a place to thrive in the big box without having to jump through insane hoops.

 

[Times Up]

In my region Target is dabbling with this... we're bringing in local merch like crazy. Which I think is fantastic... it's an even better reason to love Target. They're giving small business a place to thrive in the big box without having to jump through insane hoops.

Tell us more, this sounds interesting!

 

[Ashfromoldsite]

Are your call boxes still working?

 

[Hardlinesmaster]

Tell us more, this sounds interesting!

Spot has been advertising the small biz on the tv wall.
Target Market Program - http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/finance/procurement/TargetMarketProgram

 

[Not My Name]

This is hilarious... I love when ex TM's claim the sky is falling because their buddies probably jacked something up at their store and got a coaching and now they're raging with hatred.
There's not a single shred of evidence that the company is headed to the shitter except for the belief of TM's who don't want to work hard or claim they work hard when they're moving like sloths and just going through the motions of a daily job.

1) How long have you been with Target?
2) Do you have eyeballs?

If you haven't noticed a drastic shift in employee morale, not very long.
If you haven't noticed a drastic shift in store brand, not very long.

A ton of lazy people work at Target, and that's retail in general... but Target's goal is to strip payroll to the point where they *only* have a bunch of "O" rated TMs running around... and guess what? That's not going to happen. I worked with Target for 10.5 years and you know how many legit Os I met that deserved to get that score based on work ethic/accuracy/speed? 2. 2 people, arguably 3 or 4, in 10.5 years worked that hard. And I worked with probably a couple thousand people total in that time frame across multiple stores. And I wasn't one of them. I was always a high EX and it was always a fair rating.

The sky isn't falling as in the place is shutting down overnight. Dude... most major corporations with deep pockets like this don't just fail overnight. Sometimes it takes literal decades... look at Sears. How long were they going down the tubes? 20 years at least? Maybe 30? lol...

Target is failing. The amount of total stores company wide has largely remained flat for years, and they no longer have mostly happy employees. That sound like a company that's doing well? It might take 20 years even but Target has already peaked. It peaked about 15 years ago if not a little before that, in case you were wondering.

 

[seasonaldude]

Spot needs to get much better at local stocking. We have several staples in our local diet that are either not at Spot or there's only one variety of something, which is typically not the best variety. Or even just where's the whole bean coffee from local roasters? Where's the fresh fruit and veggies from local farmers? I mean I know I'm not at a Super Target, but can we at least get some freaking cabbage? We don't even sell caraway seed. How the hell am I supposed to make bierocks without cabbage and caraway seed?

This is why I can't shop for my dinner in market. It's down the road to the grocery store that knows how to stock to local taste.