Target, Inc.

It is hard to overstate the significance of Target’s entry into Canada in terms of the impact it will have on the company’s growth and the marketplace overall. You would have to go back to 1992 and Walmart’s acquisition of 122 Woolco stores to find an event of similar magnitude, and even that deal comes up short compared with Target’s plans to open as many as 150 stores beginning in early 2013.

Target failed to crack a ranking of the top 10 most effective back-to-school ads compiled by Ace Metrix that was dominated by retail competitors and technology companies.

The new Target.com website went live last Tuesday just as Target News Now was hitting in-boxes with an item about the relaunch that began, “Just launch the new site already.” Well, now that the completely reengineered site is operational, it marks the company’s first step on an ambitious plan for multi-channel expansion, according to Target.com president Steve Eastman.

The new Target.com website went live last Tuesday just as Target News Now was hitting in-boxes with an item about the relaunch that began, “Just launch the new site already.” Well, now that the completely reengineered site is operational, it marks the company’s first step on an ambitious plan for multi-channel expansion, according to Target.com president Steve Eastman.

The world is full of powerful women, but a recent listing of the 100 most powerful by Forbes indicates that, with a few exceptions, they don’t think many are involved in the retail and consumer packaged goods world.

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Best Buy, Sears and Target ranked as the top three cross-channel performers in a study by CrossView, a provider of cross-channel commerce solutions. The study, which examined the cross-channel capabilities of 25 top retailers, found that a majority of retailers are providing an unsatisfactory cross-channel experience. 

Highlights of the study, which is due to be released Aug. 30, include:

• Only 12% of studied retailers could access a customer’s pending web order in store;

Just launch the new site already. Target executives keep talking about how much better its new website will be now that e-commerce efforts have been brought in house, so it sure would be nice to see what all the excitement is about. Not sure when that will happen, but EVP merchandising Kathy Tesija contends it is going to be a lot better.

Talk about visibility. Target went way beyond the norm in the retail industry earlier this year when it said that within six or seven years sales would reach $100 billion and earnings per share would double to at least $8. Expressing such a long term outlook is not without considerable risk, chief among them is the rapid pace of change in the retail industry and the fact that the competitive landscape and the factors influencing consumer demand could look very different within six or seven years.

It would appear the year is playing out much as Target’s senior executives envisioned many months ago when guidance was provided regarding how the retailer’s sales performance was likely to unfold. As expected, the second quarter same-store sales increase of 3.9% was an acceleration of the 2% gain reported during the first quarter, and now further improvement is anticipated during the third and fourth quarter judging from upwardly revised profit targets shared with investors.

Santa Clara, Calif. -- Best Buy, Sears and Target ranked as the top three cross-channel performers in a study by CrossView, a provider of cross-channel commerce solutions. The study, which examined the cross-channel capabilities of 25 top retailers, found that a majority of retailers are providing an unsatisfactory cross-channel experience. 

Highlights of the study, which is due to be released Aug. 30, include: