Circle Week and the new Circle

[jackandcat]

Looking at today's Weekly Ad for this Circle Week, we may be seeing the impact on non-Circle members. Each and every sale-priced item in the current Weekly Ad requires Circle. There are no promotional sales offers shown which don't require Circle.

I don't know if future Weekly Ads will mirror this, but it's quite possible that Target is limiting all future sale price promotions to Circle members. Some but not all competitors embrace this pushy approach to loyalty programs. Target management is determined to pressure guests into loyalty-program usage. Circle is no longer merely about extra-special promotional deals beyond the weekly ad promotions. The new message to guests who are reluctant to join because of their personal privacy concerns and objections to data tracking is: join or pay full price.

This seems like desperate pandering to Wall Street analysts at the expense of alienating some guests. Any thoughts?

 

[vendordontmesswithme]

I just look at the new sight. I have a question one of the bonud offers was Target 360. It said auto applied. I am not interested in this at all. I don't care if it's free. I don't want to remember to cancel it later. Did I misunderstand the " auto applied"

 

[dannyy315]

I got my free year of circle 360. I don't know how often I'll use it because why would I pay a 15-20% tip when I work at the store? I'm sure there will be a circumstance where I might use it, but I can't think of one right now.

 

[Ringwraith917]

@vendordontmesswithme You're not signed up yet. You have the "deal" for free membership automatically saved in your app.
You can view your membership status for each of the 3 rewards programs under My Target in the app.

 

[Dream Baby]

Do you have to have the Circle Card to get Circle 360 FREE if a TM?

This is my current account.

 

[Reshop Ninja]

Do you have to have the Circle Card to get Circle 360 FREE if a TM?

This is my current account.

I'm wondering about that as well. I was automatically given the free trial but it says it expires May 18th of this year. I have my Red Card added to my Target Wallet with my team member discount.

 

[SamSepiol]

If you have the offer applied for the free year, it's applied when you go through the yearly sign up. It'll create an order for $0.00

 

[vendordontmesswithme]

@vendordontmesswithme You're not signed up yet. You have the "deal" for free membership automatically saved in your app.
You can view your membership status for each of the 3 rewards programs under My Target in the app.

Thks

 

[gracefulfillment]

My impression is non single use offers will be auto applied (regular sale stuff) like ground beef being 20% off rn, but you'll still have to apply the "$10 off $50" style coupons since you can only use them once.

Circle 360 should be a 0$ purchase assuming you had your TM discount code saved in time, regardless of redcircle card status.

 

[Mikuhl]

They need to make entering your phone number the only thing you need to do to sign up. This is going to lead to confusion when guests enter their phone number and the deals don't apply.

You can sign them up manually but this is an extra like 2 minutes you have to spend to get the guest the deals.

 

[Guest Avocado]

Do you have to have the Circle Card to get Circle 360 FREE if a TM?

This is my current account.

No. Just need to have your TM discount linked to your account. I believe the deadline for this passed and it's too late though.

 

[gsa4lyfe]

Looking at today's Weekly Ad for this Circle Week, we may be seeing the impact on non-Circle members. Each and every sale-priced item in the current Weekly Ad requires Circle. There are no promotional sales offers shown which don't require Circle.

I don't know if future Weekly Ads will mirror this, but it's quite possible that Target is limiting all future sale price promotions to Circle members. Some but not all competitors embrace this pushy approach to loyalty programs. Target management is determined to pressure guests into loyalty-program usage. Circle is no longer merely about extra-special promotional deals beyond the weekly ad promotions. The new message to guests who are reluctant to join because of their personal privacy concerns and objections to data tracking is: join or pay full price.

This seems like desperate pandering to Wall Street analysts at the expense of alienating some guests. Any thoughts?

While it would be a little aggressive to force usage for all sales, it’s so simple now that just putting a phone number in would be something anyone could do

 

[Zxy123456]

No. Just need to have your TM discount linked to your account. I believe the deadline for this passed and it's too late though.

Me and another fellow team member signed up today and it was free. We have a red card so I don’t know if that makes a difference. The free offer didn’t show up in the app until today.

 

[Zxy123456]

Do you have to have the Circle Card to get Circle 360 FREE if a TM?

This is my current account.

I don’t think so. I have the circle card but it gave me the option to change to a different card. Just checked and I can input any form of payment. Just clarifying you’re not paying for the service it’s free, the payment is for purchases you make.

 

[rd123]

I'm wondering about that as well. I was automatically given the free trial but it says it expires May 18th of this year. I have my Red Card added to my Target Wallet with my team member discount.

I guess May 18 is the last date to claim the free offer for team members.

 

[rd123]

I didn’t feel anything interesting or special in this week’s offers . More headache for us to mount all the circle deal signs on endcaps . Me being 5 ft tall made the process worse !!

 

[Zxy123456]

I didn’t feel anything interesting or special in this week’s offers . More headache for us to mount all the circle deal signs on endcaps . Me being 5 ft tall made the process worse !!

My coffee I buy was on sale but, that was the only deal i thought was good.

 

[dannyy315]

There was a new Magic Bullet personal smoothie maker on sale for $27.99 (down from $39.99) that my brother had said he wanted, and his birthday is coming up, so I got that for him. So I'm happy about that.

And I just tore my threshold fitted sheet last night, so the 30% circle offer on that was clutch.

All in all, this has been a busier start to circle week compared to the last couple years. I think the eclipse tomorrow has something to do with it though.

 

[Rarejem]

I wanted to get an Apple watch for a gift, but the return is outside of when the birthday is. Oh well.

 

[SallyHoover]

The deadline to have your employee discount # added to your target account so that you could sign up for the free Target 360 between 4/7 and 5/18 is past. As long as your employee discount # is part of your target account then you have until 5/18 to sign up for free.

The Circle 360 will auto charge you in one year $49 if you have a Circle Card (and presumably have it linked to pay) or $99. You can immediately go onto manage subscriptions and cancel the renewal. That is what I did and the message both before I clicked cancel and after is that the membership is still active through 4/7/2025.

 

[rd123]

I claimed the free target 360 offer and set a reminder for one week before it auto renews

 

[Dream Baby]

The deadline to have your employee discount # added to your target account so that you could sign up for the free Target 360 between 4/7 and 5/18 is past. As long as your employee discount # is part of your target account then you have until 5/18 to sign up for free.

The Circle 360 will auto charge you in one year $49 if you have a Circle Card (and presumably have it linked to pay) or $99. You can immediately go onto manage subscriptions and cancel the renewal. That is what I did and the message both before I clicked cancel and after is that the membership is still active through 4/7/2025.

The auto renew is why corporations love this subscription services.

Years ago I worked at Onstar (OnStar - Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OnStar).

Customers would call to cancel service on a car a car they sold months or even a year earlier.

I would look at the account and the charge hit their credit card every month on the same date.

We did not give refunds except maybe the current month.

This is when I learned that no one even looks at the credit card bills closely.

 

[Idea]

I'm wondering about that as well. I was automatically given the free trial but it says it expires May 18th of this year. I have my Red Card added to my Target Wallet with my team member discount.

may 18th is the last day you have to activate the circle 360. you need to subscribe for the annual service not the trial. make sure your team member is added before you subscribe. I did it yesterday and immediately received an email stating that it cost me 0.00

 

[dannyy315]

Something I really hate about Circle now- products on the website with a target circle deal look like they're just on sale at first glance, so I have people coming in being like "it said this was on sale on your website". And they don't realize it's only with Target circle. And they get annoyed if I ask them to sign up.

 

[commiecorvus]

Something I really hate about Circle now- products on the website with a target circle deal look like they're just on sale at first glance, so I have people coming in being like "it said this was on sale on your website". And they don't realize it's only with Target circle. And they get annoyed if I ask them to sign up.

The screwed up part is half the time the people are annoyed at themselves for not reading it properly but they can't admit that so they just have to take it out on someone else.