i mean... it seems like everything is going wrong... none of the higher ups wanted the ceo position... all stores seem to be understaffed... nothing gets done anymore... canada is clearly a debacle... will target still be around 5, 10, 20 years from now?
Archived is target going under?
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Ringwraith917
Professional Badass
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If the new CEO takes the right actions to steer the company back on track with great guest service (not trying to shove red cards down every guest's throat) designer collaborations (that people want), and reward employees for great work by promoting from within, then Target will be here for a long time to come. Some say the brick and mortar store is an old model that doesn't work anymore, but for consumables and soft lines I believe it will remain viable.
dabeastfromtheeast
DC Beast
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For the sake of my own continued employment, I certainly hope not 
. While I do believe that at-home 3D printing will eventually be the death of the retail industry, I think that's a good decade or two away from happening. At any rate, consider that despite all the continued blunders, Canada, and the data breach, the company is still thirty-something-th on the Fortune 500. For better or worse, Spot is here to stay.
. While I do believe that at-home 3D printing will eventually be the death of the retail industry, I think that's a good decade or two away from happening. At any rate, consider that despite all the continued blunders, Canada, and the data breach, the company is still thirty-something-th on the Fortune 500. For better or worse, Spot is here to stay.
Mhugh220
Former ETL-Logistics
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It's just a rough patch. Several companies have hit rough patches and recover better than they were, some continue sinking (i.e. Blockbuster). Someday, in the distant future, brick and mortar stores might be a memory, however many people still prefer to hold a product in their hand before buying. Sometimes just getting out of the house to walk around a mall is needed. Usually when one business fails another one prospers or it paves the way for a new style of business to open.
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Are your stores still having to cut tls? Since we got the new CEO all cutting was stopped. We even replaced a tl position even tho our store was still 2 tls heavy.
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I have some older TMs at my store that quietly told me the whole situation feels like KMart when the troubles started happening there. I did point out that I don't think Target is spread as thin as KMart was, but Target in Canada and the data breach sure didn't help.
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The company is definitely hiring, but this is also something discount retailers are currently struggling with in some ways as well . I think it'll survive, target does fill an interesting niche is discount retailer with better design. Well, attempts to.
We didn't cut any TL's, the only two TL's we had a year ago that we don't now are a GSTL who was promoted and now has an Intern position, and a AP TL who was promoted to ETL-AP and moved to another Target as part of the promotion. We however recently promoted two TM's to TL's, and obviously hired a new AP TL.
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It's certainly not moving in a positive direction it seems. Our STL recently quit, as did the STL in another district store of ours (we are the top 2 targets in our district). 2 ETLs in our store recently quit as well. In addition there is all of the consolidating - our store is losing the ETL Senior Merch position, and hardlines went from 2 ETLs to only 1. From years ago we went from 5 softline TLs running the floor to only 2. A salesfloor TL quit and we didn't replace, all other hardlines TLs just picked up more area. I remember the days when as a TL, I was only in charge of Pfresh salesfloor (we had a backroom pfresh tl in addition to regular backroom tl). Now with all of the consolidating and other inefficiencies that have been going on over the past couple of years, I am in charge of Pfresh (and about 90-95% of pfresh backroom), pfresh logistics, dry market, and HBA. We are a high volume store.
Nowadays, almost every new ETL that gets hired comes from outside Target and doesn't receive the proper training to do the job well. Our TL core (the experienced crew among us) is basically running the store. Especially with no STL in the house. The ETL crew is just not seasoned enough to be running the place properly at this point in time.
Things aren't looking too sunny right about now...
Nowadays, almost every new ETL that gets hired comes from outside Target and doesn't receive the proper training to do the job well. Our TL core (the experienced crew among us) is basically running the store. Especially with no STL in the house. The ETL crew is just not seasoned enough to be running the place properly at this point in time.
Things aren't looking too sunny right about now...
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"some older TMs at my store that quietly told me the whole situation feels like KMart when the troubles started happening there."
Having worked at Kmart during the start of it's fall from grace 95-99 and at Target from then on, I can say Target is no where near as bad as Kmart was at that time. However they are making the exact same mistakes that put Kmart essentially out of business. Overexpansion, half ass remodels (when we rolled out pfresh, my flashbacks to BigKs, we're strong) and finally compensating for all these screw ups by cutting staff to the point where the stores look like shit, noone is around to help customers and nobody wanted to shop there anymore.
Having worked at Kmart during the start of it's fall from grace 95-99 and at Target from then on, I can say Target is no where near as bad as Kmart was at that time. However they are making the exact same mistakes that put Kmart essentially out of business. Overexpansion, half ass remodels (when we rolled out pfresh, my flashbacks to BigKs, we're strong) and finally compensating for all these screw ups by cutting staff to the point where the stores look like shit, noone is around to help customers and nobody wanted to shop there anymore.
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You summed up exactly where Target is going wrong in less than a paragraph. Why in the world can corporate not understand such a basic concept?
oath2order
Scary Socialist
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Let me sum up corporate America.
"Build something up nice, retire, and watch the replacements extract as much money as they can from the company."
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It's good to see some stores out their promoting from within!!
This is what Target needs to get back to, just like the glory days with Bob Ulrich. I would guess now it's probably 80% new-in-roles college grads and only 20% from within.
Target needs to start fighting to keep their talented employees with good raises and more opportunity for advancement because I have seen a lot of talented people leave Spot recently.
I just don't see how the way Target does things now can be good for business. The new CEO needs to take a ground level view of its stores and try to follow the Costco business model not the Walmart model on how they treat their employees.
I believe if Target invests more in its employees everything else will easily fall into place.
On a side note, I do believe to brick and mortar business will eventually be very limited, maybe just smaller store formats but I think that may be 20 years from now.
Rock Lobster
Executive Team Leader
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The most dangerous phrase in the English language is, "We've always done it this way."
Target simply needs to realize that old strategies are not always going to work. The market is changing and only those that innovate in the right way are going to survive. If your only strategy for success is, "Great guest service and REDcards" then we have already lost it.
Target simply needs to realize that old strategies are not always going to work. The market is changing and only those that innovate in the right way are going to survive. If your only strategy for success is, "Great guest service and REDcards" then we have already lost it.
There are lots of things that are allowed/overlooked now at Spot that would had been unheard of...when I started with spot in the mid 90s. No matter what you call it be it the vibe, fff, etc...great customer service and low /competitive prices are what brings the consumer into the stores. I think there have been some positive changes made within Spot ( and I realize that Spot has to change to be viable ) but some things were working and didn't need to be changed. If I had a piece of advice it would be for the Ceo, Cfo , and all of their counter parts...to come out of their deluxe offices and spend time touring stores across the country, talking to team members, leaders and guests a like. Find out what people need/want in a place to shop and a place to work.
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Unless the visits were unannounced they would never get a good sense of what the stores were like. Every time there is the slightest chance someone who is anyone might maybe drive near my store it the place is engulfed in madness. The outcome is a nice looking store, just don't look under the rug, and a very stressed out team.
Walk in to a super high volume store on a Saturday afternoon and see gobacks waiting to be sorted and every salesfloor TM on a lane and messy shelves. Instead they announce they will visit and come in Thursday morning at 8am. Yup store looks nice, well duh!
My store is a pigsty & it's humanly impossible to meet their impossible expectations to keep things halfway tidy so things are shoved on shelves wherever there is an empty space.
Morale couldn't be lower - TMs are miserable & ETLs are just as miserable. The only happy employees of Target are the robots sitting in corporate offices handing down these ridiculous agendas & reading the reports that are finagled to show green scores.
I don't expect corporate to change their thinking though because this is Walmart's strategy so it's exactly what Target will base their model on. As long as the public & media continues to bash Walart for their business practices & ignores Target's same business practices, Target will be content to drive the business into the ground for the sake of stockholders & higher ups who will milk the company while the milking is good. The rats will jump the ship & laugh all the way to the bank.
Morale couldn't be lower - TMs are miserable & ETLs are just as miserable. The only happy employees of Target are the robots sitting in corporate offices handing down these ridiculous agendas & reading the reports that are finagled to show green scores.
I don't expect corporate to change their thinking though because this is Walmart's strategy so it's exactly what Target will base their model on. As long as the public & media continues to bash Walart for their business practices & ignores Target's same business practices, Target will be content to drive the business into the ground for the sake of stockholders & higher ups who will milk the company while the milking is good. The rats will jump the ship & laugh all the way to the bank.
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Unless the visits were unannounced they would never get a good sense of what the stores were like. Every time there is the slightest chance someone who is anyone might maybe drive near my store it the place is engulfed in madness. The outcome is a nice looking store, just don't look under the rug, and a very stressed out team.[/QUOTE]
^^^^^
THIS!!!
And the result is..."Oh you're store looks great! Push/Reshop clean, Backroom clean, zone is good! We must be pretty efficient here, now let's set the bar higher and add more expectations! If they were able to do all this with the limited payroll and resources, they should be able to handle a few more things."
5 minutes after the visit is gone...Open up bay 2 to continue working on overnight's truck push, bring out and work on all of the reshop carts that were tucked away behind endcaps in the back of the store, Open up the elevator to get the day's push, and squeeze into the walk in cooler/freezers to try to control the massive amounts of backstock/push/challenge...
^^^^^
THIS!!!
And the result is..."Oh you're store looks great! Push/Reshop clean, Backroom clean, zone is good! We must be pretty efficient here, now let's set the bar higher and add more expectations! If they were able to do all this with the limited payroll and resources, they should be able to handle a few more things."
5 minutes after the visit is gone...Open up bay 2 to continue working on overnight's truck push, bring out and work on all of the reshop carts that were tucked away behind endcaps in the back of the store, Open up the elevator to get the day's push, and squeeze into the walk in cooler/freezers to try to control the massive amounts of backstock/push/challenge...
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Once upon a time I worked for the Evil Empire (aka Wally World). At the time Sam Walton (Owner, President, HMFIC) was still alive and active with the company. He would walk into a store on an announced visit, say hi to all the managers, then ask to speak to the newest associate. He'd talk to the newest associate to figure out what was going on in the store while the managers were sent to go do something else somewhere else. The man got it. It would be great if spot would adopt this kind of leadership visit strategy.
Life your store sounds like mine. Only at my store TLS are quitting left and right TMS are quitting and things are just plain getting ugly. People are begging people to coming in on the off days because they do not have anybody to work because the people quit and no one wants to come in on the off days because they are so fed up with the place and in return we are fed up because we have to run around like chickens with our heads cut off trying to get the sales floor looking clean. Fast fun and friendly? Hmm......
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