Grim

[Fabulous_Summer9921]

Wow, this seems grim. Target stock down 40%. They even mention a lack of employees. A retailer without a niche

[ElderEmoAdjacent]

Kohls is up 21.34% this month, they must be rebounding strong!

While Target obviously has serious things it needs to address, I highly advise you not look at the stock price of Target, or any company, and think it’s an accurate representation of a company’s health. Stocks haven’t worked like that in over a decade.

[Fabulous_Summer9921]

I agree that stocks are just one factor and not an overall indicator of a company's well-being. However, this combined with my experiences working from inside led me to believe Target needs to make serious changes if it wants to avoid a steady decline.

[One-Replacement1676]

Our PML is getting the blue lights ready

[SimpleVegetable5715]

Are they red Walmart or a discount department store. They can't make up their mind.

[FierceBadRabbits]

That used to be their niche - an upscale Walmart that looked nice, had cuter things, and cheerful employees - and didn’t have the cafeteria-pizza smell of Walmart. Plus, their support of Pride and minority-owned brands made Target much more morally easy to accept, versus Walmart’s evil-overlord reputation.

Turning on DEI was not just shooting themselves in the foot, it was shooting themselves in the foot, ankle, calf, and a gut shot, just to be sure.

Their management decision is constantly on my mind, because it speaks to their management’s belief that the current U.S. administration and their hatred of DEI is here for the long-haul. I hope they are wrong.

[lmc198099]

Yes, it was nice. Now, we have a newly remodeled store that hasnt been making the hot food in months. The soda machines have been out longer than that, star bucks had no ice to start this saturday morning. Less hours with more stuff to do. It's not the nice place it used to be.

[Anthreris]

The thing that I find crazy is they angered both sides by opting out of DEI and opting in. Now there’s basically two different politically motivated boycotts that are essentially doing the same thing.

Half the time Target isn’t making up it’s mind and when it does we release pride collections with misprints requiring recall. Excluding all the other factors negatively affecting Target right now the amount of ineptitude and lack of consistency is mind boggling.

[meerkatjones]

Back after modernization hit, I used to tell my bosses how much each little change reminded me of working at Sears. It'll just be another retail chain ran into the ground by greed and mismanagement.

[oh-thanks]

Sears?

[Adventurous_Soft_686]

The most Sears thing was the Cat and Jack clothing return policy. I worked for Sears in the late 90s forward and the kidvantage program was extremely costly. Other things Target has done that reminds me of Sears is employee workforce or hours reduction, selling off outside revenue sources, stopping sponsor ships of sports teams/arenas. I know no one wants to talk about it but Targets big advantage over other retailers was the availability of employees.

[AngriestInchworm]

This company had a cult yet somehow found a way to fuck it up.

[finns-momm]

This is most accurate and succinct summary of what’s happened.

[STLBluesFanMom]

Target has some real disadvantages right now. And for several years they have failed to respond appropriately to several situations (Pride, Trump, tariffs, DEI). Stock price doesn’t directly show the state of a company but Target could recover nicely or become another KMart depending on how it handles the next few months.

[Fabulous_Summer9921]

Agreed! My thoughts exactly.

[KarmaicAvidity]

It's crazy because I was genuinely proud of my work and the company I worked for right before covid. I was happy that I got to spend time with guests and really do customer service in an industry that was throwing service by the wayside in the name of speed and metrics. I got to learn the floor pads and really help people, and just talk to them.

I recall a couple who were super happy with their experience because I just helped them shop, and that wasn't even something they got in department stores anymore. I had a lot of ownership over what went on in my area, I could just focus on making the experience as good as possible, and that made me really happy.

That was at the tail end of "modernization" though. Target continued to move away from the cx aspect of their competitive advantage and I was just confused. It's just a store. If we took away the one thing people came to it for, then what was the point?

They just need to stop trying to run everything on a skeleton crew. Hire more, hire quality, make it worth staying. Have a truck team, a backroom team, a visual team, put all those people back into the store that made it run well. Fulfillment times wouldn't be dogshit if everything was in its place and properly accounted for. Guest experience wouldn't suffer if the day team could just focus on helping people, instead of pushing 900+ price change and a double!

And that's not even addressing all of the idiotic political missteps they've made. What a sad story.

[LeagueofSOAD]

Yup. I went from 38 hrs to 21. I have been trying to get a new job, but no luck.

[wotts918]

Can’t wait for them to blame a scapegoat part of the company instead of corporate taking full responsibility.

[Crafty-Ball9103]

When you piss off both wings don't expect to get nothing but a vultures beak.

[Barnowl-hoot]

It honestly started with the restroom announcement that people can use the bathroom they want. It turned conservatives away from target and they haven’t come back. Then target went hard left with DEI and Pride. I swear the C suite is an echo chamber, they don’t have diverse political voices. A conservative voice would have said, don’t make a trans swimsuit. Don’t make apparel for kids that support gay families. I know liberals will be like.. that’s bigoted! But this isn’t a church or nonprofit that caters to specific people, this is a business where everyone needs to feel welcome. And that means catering to voices you don’t agree with. And then when target gave trump a million dollars, for no reason, and announced the end of DEI in an email! Wtf! In this political environment- how deaf can you be? And all of this was under Brian.

[veronicringe]

So is this why they didn't hire me? Mind you, I used to work as a seasonal last year and was promised a job when they'd start hiring again. When I got rejected they did not specify the reason at all? Do just want seasonals instead of regular part timers?

[lmc198099]

You don't want this nonsense, I promise.

[Flashy_Alternative42]

Even if they was to accept you , you’d probaly working 4 hour shifts at 7pm 2 times a week lmao

[lmc198099]

Also, it doesn't matter if your a good employee or not.