- Target has been growing its small-store fleet in order to attract shoppers living in big cities.
- The stores carry most of what a traditional Target does, and they offer similar options like online-order pickup and same-day delivery.
- We shopped at a small-format Target in New York City and a more traditional Target store in Jersey City. Here’s how they compared.
Target has been growing its small-store fleet in order to attract shoppers living in big cities.
The stores are designed to reach consumers living in densely populated areas, opening in cities like New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Target plans to have over 130 of these small-format stores by the end of 2019.
The smaller stores currently offer most of the same services as traditional Target stores, like same-day delivery and online-order pickup.
In its most recent earnings report in August, Target reported that comparable sales were up 6.5% in the second quarter — Target’s best report in 13 years. Traffic to Target’s stores rose 6.4% in the biggest increase since 2008, when the retailer first started reporting that metric, according to the Associated Press.
“There’s no doubt that, like others, we’re currently benefiting from a very strong consumer environment — perhaps the strongest I’ve seen in my career,” Target CEO Brian Cornell said in a call with investors in August.
Target’s smaller stores are a fraction of the size of a full Target store. Full stores average 145,000 square feet, while smaller stores average 12,000 to 80,000 square feet. Still, they carry many of the same categories, including clothes, electronics, and groceries.
We visited a suburban-style Target in Jersey City, New Jersey, and a small-format Target in New York’s Tribeca neighborhood. Here’s how they stacked up:
First we went to the smaller Target store in Tribeca, in Lower Manhattan.
On the first floor, there was a women’s fashion section on the left, and athletic wear on the right.
The clothes on the first floor were mostly business casual.
