Target Canada finished

when target announced they were coming to Canada, there was an article which stated that Target had never expanded internationally and had never opened so many stores at the same time. I remember saying to myself "uh oh. that sounds ominous".
 
Arrogance to imagine they could renovate, staff and stock over a hundred stores all at once and ignorance of Canadian tastes, preferences, and demographics both played a large part. But the one overriding factor that trumped all other failings was incompetence. No other word can describe inviting your customers into stores with empty shelves over and over. No retailer who does that can make a profit.

Any kid knows that without product there's no point in building the lemonade stand.
 
Arrogance to imagine they could renovate, staff and stock over a hundred stores all at once and ignorance of Canadian tastes, preferences, and demographics both played a large part. But the one overriding factor that trumped all other failings was incompetence. No other word can describe inviting your customers into stores with empty shelves over and over. No retailer who does that can make a profit.

Any kid knows that without product there's no point in building the lemonade stand.

True. What irks me is that the shareholders and employees pay the piper.

I walk my dog near a Target store every morning. Got to know a gal, so to speak, who arrived for work around 5:30am. Used to wave as I walked by. She's gone along with all the receiving staff.

Their should be a way to hold the fat, flatulent executives accountable for the damage they do.

Incompetence? Absolutely.
 
The closing of Target will also force a number of Starbucks to close as well.

I believe there is a Starbucks in every Target store. Those employee will also face the same fate as the Target employees.

The company itself (Starbucks) will have to take a write down of all the capital expenditures to outfit those outlets. That's going to hit the bottom line big time. Innocent bystanders so to speak.
 
I was in a target store before Christmas to buy some Lego for a child, and was mightily surprised, when there actually were staff available to help me. Never have I seen that in a Sears or Bay store. I decided that I would start shopping there, but I guess I did not buy enough.
 
The closing of Target will also force a number of Starbucks to close as well.

I believe there is a Starbucks in every Target store. Those employee will also face the same fate as the Target employees.

The company itself (Starbucks) will have to take a write down of all the capital expenditures to outfit those outlets. That's going to hit the bottom line big time. Innocent bystanders so to speak.

May not be that big a deal to SBUX. The Target locations are under a licensee arrangement with the Starbucks and are not corporate owned stores. (Probably similar to the relationship they have in the US also with Target). I think the employees are technically Target employees if it similar to how a lot of license arrangements work. Starbucks wpuld not have to deal with any real estate or lease issues they may have had if they were corporate stores. Besides SBUX has over 20,000 stores globally both corporate and licensed, the Canadian Target Starbies locations are a drip in the bucket.
 
No wonder he's smiling!

n-GREGG-STEINHAFEL-large570.jpg


Target CEO's Golden Handshake Pretty Much Matches The One For All 17,600 Canadian Employees

An interesting talking point has seized the interwebs today: The amount of money Target has set aside to pay its Canadian staff is slightly less than the money it paid out to one former employee: Its CEO.

Gregg Steinhafel took a total of $61 million U.S. from Target when he left the company last spring, according to Fortune's calculations. Meanwhile, the fund Target set up to pay employees as it winds down operations over the next four months is set at $56 million U.S. (That’s $70 million Canadian, at current exchange rates.)

Interestingly, Target’s money-losing foray into Canada was one of the top reasons cited for Steinhafel’s departure when he resigned last May, along with the retailer's infamous credit card data breach.

Con't...

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/01/21/target-ceo-severance-canadian-workers_n_6517272.html
 
In retrospect, they probably should have just rolled into the southern Ontario market to see if they can make it here rather than roll out across the entire country all at once in one massive blitzkrieg wave.
This thing was kind of like Napoleon invading Russia and getting destroyed by the harshness of good old mother earth.
When Walmart came to Canada 20 years ago, they started with a much smaller footprint and then just kept slowly expanding and expanding and expanding till they're all over the place now.

Walmart came to Canada with almost exactly the same footprint. They bought 122 Woolco stores. The big difference was, overnight they became Walmarts, and then over time, they were renovated or in many cases, new stores built. Their distribution wasn't any great thing in the beginning either, as they hadn't opened their Brampton distribution centre yet. Even so, they managed to keep their stores stocked. Target went to much too soon. They wanted all their stores to be newly renovated from the start, they built that massive distribution centre in Milton (and yet somehow still couldn't stock their few measly stores they launched with), and their biggest issue was, as said already, not living up to Canadian's expectations. We wanted Target US. Why would that have been so difficult to do here?

Maybe HBC should look at bringing back Zellers. Look at all those newly renovated stores they can move back in to, probably for pennies on the dollar lol.
 
It's probably the best from the corporate point of view that Target is closing.

Walmart to open 11 supercentres across Canada

Quote : ( Ray Kroc - McDonalds ) If you see a competitor drowning, go stick a hose down his throat.

The best move for Walmart to make now is to hammer in the nails on the target coffin. IMO Target did not want to get into a price war with Walmart and exist in a low profit situation. They are merly packing up and going home.

I was driving by a Target store this week and saw that the parking area in front of store had quite a few cars in it. The vultures are circling.
 
Quote : I was driving by a Target store this week and saw that the parking area in front of store had quite a few cars in it. The vultures are circling.

never been in a target store when they open up here but so when is the 75% off sale????
 
IMO Since they know the end is near and they will have to liquidate at fire sale prices, they should announce a across the board 20%-25% discount ( till the liquidation ) to minimize inventory. Certainly they will be liquidating at much lower rices.
 
Let us be fair

Business decisions are not rocket science - they are more complicated

but



Extremely bad decisions made by a CEO - IE expanding too quickly before they understood the market or even had suppliers in place - who was fired with a multi million dollar parachute

meanwhile

thousands of blue collar workers left unemployed with a few weeks severance


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