Service & Engagement Shutting down Bullseye’s Playground

[Zombietronic]

Please forgive me if this has come up before, is a frequent topic, or If there’s a better place to post. But has there ever been a serious discussion about removing Bullseye’s Playground?

I’m an ex-team member and have been gone many years, but I still cringe walking past that wasteland of cheap, useless junk that comes from China, all too frequently in boxes with an excessive amount of packing that have only TWO items in them!

it just seems terrible for the environment, wasteful, ugly, messy, and so out of line with all the beautiful, carefully curated sections that are newer.

And does any front end person actually like stocking it? Unless you have an obsession with scavenger hunts or a glitter fetish, I just always found it awful.

As a former employee, did I sign anything that would get me in major trouble for petitioning the store to get rid of it?

Or do team members actually like it?

Thanks for any and all replies.

 

[Ashfromoldsite]

I actually love pushing bullseye. I know it's a little strange. The merch is always changing and the guests love it. Did you know that there are facebook groups dedicated to redecorating with BPG. Those people are nuts. The shit flies off the shelves. We have a very hard time keeping it full. I agree that it produces a lot of trash, but so does other parts of the store. The trash has gotten a little better over the years IMO.

Omg the gumball machine candy dishes.

 

[DBZ]

I like pushing it too when I am up there resetting. Clear out salvage, new label strips, new merch filled, 141 pulled, and clean up the chaos. Looks fantastic when I am done.

You do 141 in Bullseye? We aren't allowed to backstock. It's pushed, flexed, or up in the steel.

 

[SigningLady]

You do 141 in Bullseye? We aren't allowed to backstock. It's pushed, flexed, or up in the steel.

We do backstock ours....until we run out of space. Then it goes up in the steel. I am pretty sure Plano is the only ones pulling the 141 when we set up there though. But that is true for every area in my store- 141 only gets done when we set that area.

 

[RevLogRaven]

I love some of the stuff we sell up there. I'm currently looking at a robot and a stegosaurus with fake plants sticking out of them that I bought because they just made me happy and I wanted them for my desk. I know a ton of teachers will pick up stuff from that sections for their classes.

Unless there is a reset coming, we typically get in 1-2 uboats of product per truck and have someone scheduled every day to push it so ours doesn't look too shabby most of the time. I'm glad at our store they changed it be a straight row of shelving instead of the l shape with the two little islands of shelving. That was not easy for people to shop with carts when there was more then 2 people looking.

 

[dcworker]

Cheap ? $2.50 was the max back in 2007

 

[Dead and Khaki]

You're not alone, OP. I HATE setting that pigpen.

 

[redeye58]

Cheap ? $2.50 was the max back in 2007

When it began at my store EVERYTHING was $1, hence the name 'dollar spot'.

 

[Zombietronic]

Ok, so I went to a different store than the one I worked in right up until the pandemic.

This is the SAME junk that I was unboxing, stuffing in, constantly zoning, and complaining about 🤣.

This store was as large as ours was but only had two aisles, where we had EIGHT to keep up with.

I did see how popular it was on tiktok and it looked like there were a few nice things that I could see people getting excited about. But still, 99% of it is plastic shipped from overseas and utterly disposable.

It would be nice if they could focus on the most popular items, reasonably priced, not disposable, and just make the footprint smaller.

And I never intended for this to come off as classist. I can see how teachers could get a great deal of supplies and kid-friendly items. But dump it in a rummage box and put it in the back of the store! And try to eliminate the little porcelain candle houses and knick knacks that are valueless and require too much shipping materials!!

 

[jackandcat]

It used to be called See! Spot! Save! and The One-Spot
There's no way this part of the store will be taken out. BPG has become an iconic part of the Target experience and the stuff sells in crazy volumes.
The biggest hassle is it's just about impossible to have the correct price tags underneath the item actually on the shelf, since things get moved around so frequently.

 

[Zombietronic]

The biggest hassle is it's just about impossible to have the correct price tags underneath the item actually on the shelf, since things get moved around so frequently.

So much THIS. As I said, it wasn’t popular in the store I worked in, but a few people would buy everything (and only things) from there. And then something would ring up as $2 and they’d exclaim “$2! The price on the shelf said $1”. And instead of saying “yes, everything there is in the wrong place because little kids and grown adults just pick things up and randomly put them back wherever they feel like and it would take 57 people working 48 hour days to put everything back in place, plus half our staff are high schoolers and, ha! really they just don’t care!” I’d just say “well, let me make that $1 for you”. Our trainers were very clear that if people challenged a price difference and it was less than $20, adjust the price and make the guest happy.

 

[Zombietronic]

But….if it used to be called See! Spot! Save! and The One-Spot, then it has changed, and it could change again. I don’t see why it couldn’t become something nicer and eco-friendly.

 

[SigningLady]

The name has changed, the prices have changed, but not the items sold there though.

 

[Tessa120]

Why are you so focused on shipping and shipping materials?

 

[PackAndCry]

Why are you so focused on shipping and shipping materials?

Because they're killing the planet for some cheap crap that will get break or get thrown away in a couple weeks so they can make a quick buck.

 

[Tessa120]

If people want others to limit buying to super expensive stuff, then wages everywhere need to be increased so it's affordable. And often the "better" option isn't better. Like paper bags. Making paper is very damaging, so is it really better? Or hand dryers, is mining the metals and the fuels consumed in making the electricity better?

Want to debate the quality of what's in One Spot? Okay. Focus on packaging? Nothing proves it better, nothing proves it worse, and the alternatives are just as bad, just in different ways.

So, for what the average person can afford to spend, it's a good place. I still have most of what I've bought. What was tossed was because we managed to damage it or it was meant to be disposable in the first place.

It has a bunch of cute little things that are perfect for a skinny budget. And the bulk of it is durable unless you are using it as a replacement football. Right now my little Boo pumpkin is taped to the top of my computer because it is shaped just perfectly to prevent my cat from walking on the power button that happens to be on the top of the case.

 

[Zombietronic]

If people want others to limit buying to super expensive stuff, then wages everywhere need to be increased so it's affordable.

100% agree. Wages need to be increased, teachers deserve more pay, grocery store workers and food workers deserve more pay, and if the minimum wage increased with production capability in the US it would be $24 not $7.25. Target already started at $13 an hour when I started, went up to $16 during the pandemic and are set to introduce a $24/hr minimum wage(!) in my area soon. One of the many reasons I love them. I couldn’t agree with you more.

And often the "better" option isn't better. Like paper bags. Making paper is very damaging, so is it really better? Or hand dryers, is mining the metals and the fuels consumed in making the electricity better

Paper is unquestionably better. It’s renewable and biodegradable, where plastic isn’t. The oceans don’t have great floating paper bag patches. I don’t think hand dryers are thought to be more environmentally friendly, but were designed to be more hygienic, which is totally questionable (especially during a worldwide pandemic who wants to touch the knob after they wash their hands?) At least you can open a bathroom door with a paper towel on the way out.

Want to debate the quality of what's in One Spot? Okay. Focus on packaging? Nothing proves it better, nothing proves it worse, and the alternatives are just as bad, just in different ways

Well if nothing proves it’s better or worse you can’t say the alternatives are “just as bad”. I bet we could pretty easily prove that the packaging there is worse.

So, for what the average person can afford to spend, it's a good place. I still have most of what I've bought. What was tossed was because we managed to damage it or it was meant to be disposable in the first place

And the reliance on disposable items is a bad look for a company that promoters green initiatives in its home page. Zero products and Follow? Aruguably, nothing in Bullseye’s Playground is *needed*. It’s disposable stuff that everyone could live without and easily find elsewhere. Target should do better, though. It produces way more waste in packaging than essentials like food, clothes and even luxuries like home goods (which are at least designed to last years).

Right now my little Boo pumpkin is taped to the top of my computer because it is shaped just perfectly to prevent my cat from walking on the power button that happens to be on the top of the case

I’m glad you found a use for that and I like your cat. You can see I’m a cat lover too. My cat stepped on my laptop and managed to turn the screen upside down and it took me 30 minutes of searching to find a way to fix that. First I tried holding my head upside down and searching, but got too dizzy, before finally remembering I had a phone that searched the internet!

 

[Zombietronic]

 

[happygoth]

I mean, most items of decor are not needed. No one NEEDS throw pillows or little wooden shelves and tchochkes to put on them or gnomes or little wreaths. Often Bullseye stuff is a slightly different version of stuff we carry elsewhere in the store, that likely isn't much better in quality but costs more. And it's all made in China.

 

[jackandcat]

I mean, most items of decor are not needed. No one NEEDS throw pillows or little wooden shelves and tchochkes to put on them or gnomes or little wreaths. Often Bullseye stuff is a slightly different version of stuff we carry elsewhere in the store, that likely isn't much better in quality but costs more. And it's all made in China.

The funny thing is that by design, nearly everything sold at BPG is a "Limited Edition". Once we're sold out, that exact item is unlikely to be restocked as these are one-off productions. It might be that BPG is also used for "test marketing" product designs which in the future end up reincarnated in a "slightly different version" under a different Target brand at a more-profitable price.

 

[60SecondsRemaining]

It would be cool if they replaced that floor space with something from local vendors. The only “local” stuff in my town’s stores are for college sports, but that’s all produced by nike or whatever. Local food and little things would be really cool imo

The old greatland layout stores with two cartwells usually had one side as a local sports/college/food.

It never did well from what I can tell.

 

[FlowTeamChick]

This thread has been interesting to read.

As for the "made in China" complaint - really? Maybe check the labels and undersides of product ALL over the store; much of it comes from China and other faraway places like India, Bangladesh, Thailand, etc. Some of the product in my area comes from Canada, Scotland, Mexico and other non-Far East countries, but not a whole lot of what we sell is made in the U.S. Sometimes, I'll see labels with "made in the U.S. with imported ingredients."

Packaging? Again, really? I get that styrofoam is an environmental nightmare, but the companies that use it do so because it's cheap and effective. Customers everywhere, except maybe in your wealthy county, want cheap. And stores don't want boxes arriving with broken product.

Some stores, like mine, have a DBO for that area who actually likes working it and takes pride in having it look presentable and put together. She flexes all the time, paying attention to price points, so it very rarely looks empty or untidy. She's recently returned from being on LOA and I expect I'm not the only one who noticed a difference between when she was gone and how it looks now that she's gotten back into shape again.

Not all of it is throw-away garbage. I've bought socks from One Spot that I still wear. Little decor items I still like having in my home. Currently have my eye on a child-size garden rake that could be useful in awkward spots in my yard.

 

[commiecorvus]

My wife used the Playground all the time.
She bought gifts for the kids in her classes.
She also bought a shitload of stuff every year when there was the teacher discount so she could give it out during the year but that's a whole different story.

 

[Luck]

Because they're killing the planet for some cheap crap that will get break or get thrown away in a couple weeks so they can make a quick buck.

For what its worth I agree with your point of view.

But consumers for the most part dont care and even those that do arent educated enough to understand. Even those against plastics might not comorehend how much plastic was involved with a small wood/metal trinket.

Only way to change this is vis government and despite the public farce they all put on, plastics are considered essentially military technology and it is in all nations interests to keep plastic production plentiful and cheap.

 

[Zombietronic]

As for the "made in China" complaint - really? Maybe check the labels and undersides of product ALL over the store; much of it comes from China and other faraway places like India, Bangladesh, Thailand, etc

Certainly, but just because some non-disposable items are made in China doesn’t mean there isn’t a serious problem with importing cheap, disposable, plastic, things that nobody needs from China.

Packaging? Again, really? I get that styrofoam is an environmental nightmare, but the companies that use it do so because it's cheap and effective

What do you mean: again? Really? You know that it’s bad, and I’m sure you know that there are safer alternatives. So yes, again (really) Rich Target with their pro-environment products and initiatives they are pushing can do better. And nobody has ever shown me a cheaper way to save on shipping materials than to not ship junk in the first place.

Not all of it is throw-away garbage. I've bought socks from One Spot that I still wear. Little decor items I still like having in my home

Great, maybe there’s a place for those items in the store and not next to the $1 pack of plastic wacky pencil toppers that are also available at the dollar store.

 

[Stocker]

When it began at my store EVERYTHING was $1, hence the name 'dollar spot'.

I remember that too, a long time ago.