Target's CEO Brain Cornell claims he's confident with consumer confidence this holiday season, and believes there's still profit to be made in retail.
Retailers in general are fighting against making the customer's shopping experience better or different from what they can get by shopping online.
Target plans to do this by introducing eight new brands this holiday season. The brands are exclusive to Target. They also are hiring 100,000 more workers than normal this holiday season in order to stock shelves faster or help with online orders. Target has also attempted to create faster shipping options for their customer so they don't loose business from other companies like Amazon who are know for their fast delivery. Target also plans to have each employee specific to a department, where they are knowledgable about all the products offered. For example if you want an employee to help you pick out an outfit then they can do that.
Target has being seeing positive consumer confidence. They are witnessing more visits to stores and more views to their website.
Target CEO believes that retail jobs are still a strong way to enter the workforce, but that in the future the jobs offered in retail will be different.
I believe Target's moves are a head of other retailers. They are thinking of how to make the consumer happy and how to make the consumer's time spent shopping the most effective. By having employees specialize in a department it allows for consumers to understand what they are buying and it lowers their return rates. Also the idea reaches to all types of consumers, by bettering their website they are target the younger buyers, and by bettering customer service and experience they are target older generations who would rather shop in store.
Overall, I think that their small changes will cause an increase in consumer confidence and consumption.
http://www.foxbusiness.com/features/2017/11/12/target-ceo-says-still-sees-many-opportunities-in-retail.html
Contrary to the current trend in online shopping, the CEO making such claims is surprising to me. I find it hard to believe consumer confidence from a holiday season alone is enough to necessarily save retail stores. However, I admire the CEO's outlook that as long as it is profitable to only get good sales from one holiday season a year, if they are economically friendly why not. Seems like it should work out for Target.
ReplyDeleteFor a company like Target, I don't imagine them being elastic in respect to consumer confidence. High and low income people shop at target, and having such a variety of goods available, they shouldn't be gravely affected this holiday season. Culture happens whether people are confident or not, and people are still going to buy gifts and decorate their homes.
ReplyDeleteI believe Target is going to struggle in the coming years, not only due to the competition of online retailers such as Amazon but also due to lower price substitutes such as Walmart. It could be debated that brick and mortar retail stores are on the downward slope of the business cycle and soon we could see them using price cuts as their only incentive for coming into these stores. Online retailers such as Amazon already offer products for often times a lower price than brick and mortar stores and these brick and mortar stores will soon have to match them or beat them in order to stay competitive.
ReplyDeleteThey are still behind in the retail world with all these changes. Another reason why they will always be second compared to walmart.
ReplyDeleteCEO needs to think more about the website instead of the physical store.
Personally, I don't shop at target very often. Their quality of the products is low and expensive for what your getting. I would be more inclined to go to Walmart where there is one stop shopping and cheaper prices. The convenience of Walmart is almost unbeatable. If I was looking for quality clothes for a reasonable prices I would go to Marshall's over target.
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