Pricing Strategy : Target Sells Its Products From The High End Of The Market

Target Canada is the company’s first international expansion. However, Target’s expansion was not successful, as the company had initially planned for. Therefore, the company will be closing 133 Target Canada stores across the country and lay off approximately 17,600 employees. According to Target’s CEO Brian Cornell, he stated “After a thorough review of our Canadian performance and careful consideration of the implications of all options, we were unable to find a realistic scenario that would get Target Canada to profitability until at least 2021.” Moreover, problems occurred immediately when Target opened up over hundred stores in the first year of its Canadian Expansion. For example, customers complained about the lack of basic goods, prices being too high, and the unavailability of U.S. brands in the stores. It was the start of Target accumulating losses as high as a billion dollars a year. In addition, there was also increasing competition with Wal-Mart being the biggest retailer in Canada. The already intimidating rival lowered its prices in order to fend off Target. Furthermore, Target Corporation’s cash costs to discontinue Canadian operations are expected to be $500 million to $600 million, most of which will occur in the Company’s 2015 fiscal year or later. The Company has sufficient resources to fund these expected costs, including cash on hand and ongoing cash generation by

Target’s mission statement: “Our mission is to make Target your preferred shopping destination in all channels by delivering outstanding value, continuous innovation and exceptional guest experiences by consistently fulfilling our Expect More. Pay Less brand promise.” (target.com)

Target store have started their promotional activities by social media. Target has their official accounts on Facebook, twitter, channel on YouTube and pictures on Instagram. Target promotes its products through online, print and television advertising. It additionally includes the application improvement deliberations which concentrate on the visitor experience. Guest

However, forecast errors will also lead to unhappy customers, lost sales, and excessive inventory. To minimize errors, retailers should find the right demand forecast. Retailers do not want to have a lot of inventory sitting in the back room and too little inventory that will cause out of stock. Holding huge inventory will cause a retailer to have more expenses and decrease their profit if item is not sold especially if the product is innovative type like electronics. The challenge is to balance the inventory with demand. Communication and contribution from people in functional area is also important to create better information and improve overall accuracy. At this time, customer satisfaction will start to decrease. For example, MPRNews says one of Target loyal customer, Ann Hendricks, she is disappointed with target store in St.Paul. “Too many times, she says that store is out of the milk, coffee, bread, pasta and other staples she wants. At Target, sometimes the whole section of cheeses is blank. There's nothing in there” (Moylan). A loyal customer like Ann Hendricks goes to the Lunds & Byerlys store in downtown St. Paul to buy her grocery

Headquartered in Minneapolis Minnesota, Target Corporation is one of the largest chains of retail stores in United States and Canada (Stone, 1995). Founded in 1902, the chain now has more than 360,000 employees worldwide. The company operates nearly 1925 stores out of which 1795 stores are in the US and 130 stores are in Canada (NASDAQ, 2014). The business prides itself in a diverse portfolio of merchandise that their outlets houses, ranging from dry groceries to electronics, furniture, apparel and much more. Its distribution networks make use of third party vendors, direct shipping as well as distribution centers. It also operates a successful e-store target.com which offers customers a virtual one-stop shop for their needs.

Target Corporation was founded in 1902 and headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Target Corporation operates general merchandise and food discount stores throughout the United States. The company’s products range from household essentials, to electronics, to toys, to apparel and accessories, to home furnishings, to food and pet supplies. Most of the merchandise is sold under Target and SuperTarget trademarks, but it also sells under private-label brands, such as Archer Farms, Circo, Merona, and Room Essentials. The company also offers merchandise through programs like ClearRx, Great Save, and Home Design Event. Additionally, Target markets its merchandise under license and designer

After the recession, Target’s value proposition shifted to simply offer affordable options in a wide array of product areas. However, now with better economic conditions and without the ability to offer lower prices than its affordable retail competitors, such as Walmart, and in order to stay relevant and refresh the company, Target needs to reposition itself as the high-quality concept and style-oriented retail store it was once known for.

In today’s world, especially in Canada, consumers generally want to satisfy all of their needs in a way that saves them the most time and energy. In order to meet this need, Target offers their customers the chance to buy different products that they would normally have to go to two or three different stores

Target’s business-level strategy is one that does not strictly focus entirely on one plan to gain a competitive advantage over competition. It encompasses various strategic and meticulous planning and decision making that is implemented in order to position the company at the top of the retail industry. With competition from the likes of Wal-Mart, Sam’s Club, and Costco, Target uses several clever and “out-of-the-box” ideas to attract consumer attention and ultimately increase market share within the industry. Most of the company’s ideas centered more on the differentiation of products and services provided to customers than lowering prices. For quite some time, the company’s plan was to not compete head-to-head with Wal-Mart in terms of lowering prices but instead to provide their customers, who they identify as “guests”, with a special experience every time they visited a Target location. One idea that was implemented was to market and sell upscale, trendy clothing and unique merchandise at discounted prices.1 This strategy, known as the “cheap-chic” strategy, focused on providing good quality clothing from various well known designers and fancy products from high-profile manufacturers for prices lower than their competition. This plan was vital because it began essentially began the concept of customers referring to Target as “Tar-zhay” which according to Patrick Barwise and Sean Meehan, who are university professors, as a “connote its trendy sensibility”. Target

Target Corporation is a retail chain specializing in household goods, clothing, food, and accessories at discounted prices. The retail chain’s history started back in 1902 as Goodfellows and in 1910 as The Dayton Company. Initially, the chain specialized in “furnishings, fabrics and decorations for business and other public institutions” (“Target Corporation,” 2016, p. 5). Eventually, Target went public in 1967 and on to acquire Mervyn’s in the 1970s where they became the seventh largest retailer in the United States. Target operates in the United States, where it is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota and as of January 31, 2015 Target employs over 300,000 people. “The company recorded revenues of $72,618 million in the financial year ended January 2015, the operating profit of the company was $4,535 million, [and] the net profit was $2,449 million” (“Target

“Expect more, pay less” this slogan is known throughout the United States that links amazing service and quality products at a great price from one convenient location, Target. Target has a long history of providing a wide variety of products from fashionable clothing for all members of the family to your everyday essential needs such as toiletries and cleaning supplies. Behind every wildly successful corporation is a strong organizational structure. Target has an extensive organizational structure that helps them provide the amazing products they do at even better prices.

Office Depot uses multiple inventory strategies to order products. 90% to 95% of goods are ordered through automatic replenishment, manual replenishment, pull replenishment, and global sourcing are also used depending on channel, volume, velocity and cost. (Office Depot, 2015). The accuracy of the inventory from both a DC and store perspective is critical to the organizations success. Heizer and Render (2014) state that record accuracy is a prerequisite to inventory management, production scheduling, and sales. Accuracy is maintained by either periodic or perpetual systems (p.479). In Office Depot, the stores are required to cycle-count technology items such as laptops, desktops computers, and tablets five days a week. Discrepancies are entered in the system and bounced off the local DC’s on-hand inventory discrepancies. Office Depot is a “blind receive” organization meaning the stores receive pallets of products and simply unwrap and put them away. The only way a store knows if a product is missing is through the cycle-count program. This system was put into place to speed up the receiving process and eliminate unnecessary steps once the product was received at the store level. Office Depot conducts a full physical inventory once a year through a third party and trues up the inventory shrink at this time.

Above all, as an extension of Target’s in-store differentiation strategy, the company needs to implement strong customer service features on all its digital platforms as well. This will include friendly, well-English speaking customer service reps available 24/7 customers can talk to about questions or technical problems with little or no waiting time.

To accomplish the aforementioned vision statement, Target has come up with many different ways to fulfill their goals. Target has been trying to delighting their customers for years. They are constantly looking for better prices to fulfill their credo of, "Expect More. Pay Less."

Target offers a friendlier atmosphere, whereas with Walmart has more of a resentment and hostility present when you walk through the doors. For example, when I shop at Target there is always someone to greet me as soon as I work through the door, and when I need assistance in any department there is always a sales person there to help assist me, but at Walmart it’s not that simple. I would have to hunt for someone in order to get assist with whatever I need help with. Going back to what I’ve learned in week 1 of the course, as a business grows so does its customers which will have an increase of sales on products within the business. Target has a good relationship with their customers which has built them a high level of brand loyalty. Even