Their biggest mistake was to buy the old Zellers locations.
The Zellers locations weren't the problem, but how they opened them Target wanted a big splash, so they had all this leased real estate sitting empty so they could open them all at once Wal-mart, when they moved in, renovated one location at a time, from acquisition to opening, then moved on to the next.
I don't think Target did one thing right.... although whomever was in charge of renovating the stores did a great job. The stores were slick. It's amazing what new paint, new fixtures and a Starbucks will do. Zellers stores were similarly red and white. But Target stores just seemed much better looking.
A big problem they had was that they cheaped out and hired tons of young inexperienced people at their new head office. The company is trying to roll out 100+ stores, so you'd think they try hiring as many experienced vets to guide the ship. Instead, they had mostly people in their 20s, plus some US people who came over.
Another problem was leadership. This Tony Fisher guy has a revolving door resume at Target. One of those guys who got tapped on the shoulder and never had a job more than 12 months. He also had zero experience working in the Canadian market too. Yet somehow he's chosen to lead the Canadian region? Yeah, that sure makes sense.
From what i've read, logistics was one of the biggest nails in their coffin. For every Distribution Centre they had, there were 2 or 3 other leased warehouses filled with merchandise, while the store shelves stood empty, because their un-tested software couldn't determine what went where. As for empty shelves, store managers were instructed to leave them empty, rather than rearranging merchandise to fill them.
Thank you
