Target leaving Canada!

[22hicks]

Horrible for the 17,000 people who will be out of jobs. Not surprised they're going under though. They're stores are nice, but the prices are so much higher than the Zeller's prices were.

[salady]

What's that I hear?

Oh, it's the sound of Walmart doing the happy dance.

[tjthemanto]

Explain, not getting why you think we were underestimated.If anything they overestimated us, they actually thought that customer service was key and we would want that, apparently Canadians prefer shopping in Walmart in their PJ's in a filthy store with indifferent staff, because at the end of the day that is what Canadians chose to do.

They underestimated the following things

1. We will put up with empty shelves & supply issues & inventory issues.
2. We will put up with poor selection of merchandise.
3. We will put up with higher prices.
4. We will put up with not even having a proper ecommerce website . target.ca is a joke. You need to have a proper online presence thesedays where you can see prices, stock , selection etc, even if you can't order online. Almost everyone does a proper web serach before heading out.
5. No proper marketing,advertising or grand opening sales etc, whenever they opened a new store in your area.


They had 2 years to fix all this , but instead of dealing with it , they just kept on making excuses & never really fixed it.

They just assumed that their name was enough & people will just flock to them , and it was a given. You have to work for it & earn it. They never understood that Canadian consumers have markedly different shopping habits than Americans.

[tjthemanto]

This is from Gawker ..not sure how true or false it is. I wish they had done well as I hate Wal Mart & had given WM some competition. Apparently from a Target employee .
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I am a Canadian and I was hired in early 2012 to take on a leadership role for Target Canada stores. From the beginning, a lot of emphasis, time and energy was put into in my training. The primary focus of which, was acclimating to the Target "culture" - I spent months training in the U.S. at stores, District and Regional offices. I can say that I agree with the previous poster on the "passive aggressive" nature of Target's performance management. The overly sincere "we're here to HELP you" approach was a constant drain on the senses, as it was akin to swimming with smiling sharks. The real problems, however, became much clearer after we started opening stores.


We've heard a lot about the Guest being unhappy with the Target Canada experience, but I can say with confidence that for MANY of us working there, the "Target experience" was not what we expected either. I can disseminate (from my perspective) why the company finds itself in the predicament it does today, and hopefully enlighten some readers on how ingrained and widespread the problems are.


International Assignees or IAs - these are key Team Members from the U.S. at various levels of leadership who came to Canada for a "limited timeline" under the guise of helping set up the stores and teams for success. Instead, we found that these folks were not guides or resources, as much as they were obstacles to progress. If it didn't come from/work in the U.S. then it was not a discussion point. To come to a country as large, demographically and regionally different as Canada, and assume that the same "playbook" used in the U.S. would work in Canada was incredible. The inability of the "IAs" to think and work beyond this led to us attempting to Xerox the U.S. store culture (for Team Members and Guests) instead of develop one that is tailored to Canadian tastes and attitudes. As things began to go downhill, the IAs were extremely pointed, and openly opined that the Canadian Team Members worked "differently & less hard" and overall "took less accountability" than they were used to in the U.S. That was an exact quote that came from my boss (an IA himself). Many of these IAs were scheduled to return to the U.S. this year... And most have been asked to remain. So much for the claim that the Canadian Target business be "run and operated by Canadians".


A highly prescriptive & misguided operational approach – now as an experienced retail professional, I can appreciate and frankly, I prefer an environment where I can do what I do best: execute the plan. But when the plan is so flawed, it became clear that we were doomed for failure at the start. Target is notorious for driving out innovation, and in most cases that is required for a large, multinational retailer with expected standards of operation. But when those highly prescriptive plans only highlight our failures, there's no question we fed the beast when it came to Guest dissatisfaction. Stores have scores of empty shelves, endcaps, sections that could easily be filled with inventory on-hand, however Target DOES NOT WANT US TO FILL THEM. The POG (planogram) must be executed 100% flawlessly - even if it means the shelves are empty because what is supposed to be there isn't on hand right now. In other words, we had way too much of things that we didn't need, and not enough of things we did need. Basics like milk, food or consumables that drive repeat business are always out of stock. Store Leaders would catch major crap if they chose to fill a 4 foot shelf with more pillows (that were in stock) versus leave it empty (because there was no bedding on-hand that was supposed to be put there). Working in the store, we know empty shelves look terrible. Target would not allow us to make the decision to fill a 4 foot shelf. Again, I'm all for ensuring integrity of the POG (that's the only way to truly determine what's in/out of stock), but that was another problem that was self inflicted by...


Store Inventory and Distribution problems - simplest way to put this, is that you can't sell it if you don't have it. There was LOTS we didn't (and stores still don't...) have. Target had to open 124 stores in less-than one year, but they also had to open 3 national distribution centers to service those stores, the HQ in Mississauga Ontario, and many Regional and District offices throughout the country. The undertaking was so aggressive; it's little wonder that the ability to stock the distribution centers with the "right" product (e.g. what stores actually needed) was an afterthought. Did you know that there is no way for stores to know what is at the Distribution Centre, and what is arriving each day by truck? Stores have ZERO idea. You could hope/pray and expect one thing, and open a full 54 foot trailer full of something completely different (and usually do). What kind of system is this? Unique to Canada as the U.S. has a different system altogether (one presumably that works). What do you do then? You stock and fill the shelves in the backrooms. The front of store & shelves remains empty.


Compromised expectations by Guests - So put yourself in the role of a Store Leader; you have empty shelves and a stockroom packed with stuff you don't need/already have out. You could fill the empty shelves with some of that product but... You'd get nailed for not maintaining the Planogram (you get several passive aggressive coaching visits by senior leadership almost weekly – and they check for this). The Guest has NO IDEA that it's such a crap-show - and frankly, they shouldn't care. A lot of noise has been made about the prices not being comparable to pricing to the U.S. but I think that's only a small part of it. Pretend you're a Target Guest. You come in to shop and spend your money and you see... Empty shelves. What you want and need is not available. Not last week, yesterday, today or tomorrow. You are disappointed because you WANTED to be a Target Guest, and now you can't even get milk or eggs on a regular basis as those products are rarely in stock, never mind buy the cute dress/purse, etc. that Target so wants you to buy at their store. Target failed to make the stores compelling enough to change your shopping habit. You don't trust them with your shopping because they haven't delivered with their ability to stock what you want to buy. What does the price in the U.S. mean when you don't have anything to sell here in Canada anyhow? So, nothing to sell means sales are below forecast. What is the impact of that? Well, the most immediate is to Team Members.


Unrealistic expectations of Team Members - In the time I was with Target Canada, we participated in significant staff reductions that were mandated by HQ and Senior Leadership. In some cases, these "rightsizing" exercises resulted in reductions of almost 40% of overall store headcount. Have you been to a Target store in Canada recently? If you go with your kids, you likely outnumber the staff on duty at any one time. The service culture that was so important to Target (why we were "better" than the competition) is now non-existent. The toll this has taken on Team Members is shameful. 99% of Target Canada Team Members are Canadians, the vast majority of whom left other jobs (that they liked and were good at) to join Target Canada. The recruitment of talent was such an undertaking as we only wanted the best in retail working for us. Now you have a 1 in 3 chance you'll be "rightsized" out of a job. As with most "rightsizings", the headcount changes, but the level of work remains – it's just divided among less people. Say you get to keep your job – your reward for being a valued and high contributing Team Member is that you get to do MORE work, while many of your colleagues and friends are let go. Not exactly a cheerful work environment. Did I mention that many of the International Assignees that were scheduled to return to the U.S. and contribute virtually nothing in terms of being subject matter "experts" remain?


Target coming to Canada was a complex problem, many saying it was rushed, and it's true. We HAD to renovate (in most cases extensively) 124 old Zellers locations within a 1-year period across the country after taking on the leases, as the major landlords would not allow for these stores to be closed for longer than that. Faced with stiff penalties (and complete ownership of unfinished stores) we rushed to hit a deadline that severely undercut our ability to roll out the stores and experience we wanted to. The seeds of Target Canada's problems were sown way before the first store even opened – it was with the flawed plan and dogged determination to execute it anyway. I learned first-hand the effect of this. I was ultimately also part of a restructuring and am no longer with the company. I do have many friends that are still there, however, and the prospects for them continue to be grim. Overall I'd call my time with Target frustrating because it was an unfulfilling experience that did not leverage the experience and talent of the people they hired.

[thriftygranny]

They underestimated the following things

1. We will put up with empty shelves & supply issues & inventory issues.
2. We will put up with poor selection of merchandise.
3. We will put up with higher prices.
4. We will put up with not even having a proper ecommerce website . target.ca is a joke. You need to have a proper online presence thesedays where you can see prices, stock , selection etc, even if you can't order online. Almost everyone does a proper web serach before heading out.
5. No proper marketing,advertising or grand opening sales etc, whenever they opened a new store in your area.


They had 2 years to fix all this , but instead of dealing with it , they just kept on making excuses & never really fixed it.

They just assumed that their name was enough & people will just flock to them , and it was a given. You have to work for it & earn it. They never understood that Canadian consumers have markedly different shopping habits than Americans.

Well then Walmart has really underestimated us and yet it is crazy busy, makes no sense to me.As far as high prices, it is comparative to what you are buying and quality. Like any store you watch the sales and buy what is at great prices, you could combine coupons and price match so not sure why people felt target was over priced, and my store had limited stock upon opening but after that it was fine and the one time I wanted something that they didn't have enough of they took my info and called me when it was in store.
Walmart
1. Filthy stores
2. messy displays that are often empty
3. Horrible customer service
4. long lines and understaffed
4. sale items regularly sold out
5. very poor quality merchandise.
6. questionable clientele, those people of walmart do exist!

[Lyssia510]

Well then Walmart has really underestimated us and yet it is crazy busy makes no sense to me.As far as high prices, it is comparative to what you are buying and quality. Like any store you watch the sales and buy what is a great prices, you could combine coupons and price match so not sure why people felt target was over priced, and my store had limited stock upon opening but after that it was fine and the one time I wanted something that they didn't have enough of they took my info and called me when it was in store.
Walmart
1. Filthy stores
2. messy displays that are often empty
3. Horrible customer service
4. long lines and understaffed
4. sale items regularly sold out
5. very poor quality merchandise.
6. questionable clientele, those people of walmart do exist!

That's what I absolutely do not get about this whole Target thing. Everything people are complaining was wrong with Target they've put up with for how long with Walmart? And yet Walmart who's getting worse by the day is still in business and Target is leaving.
The only valid difference between the two stores is the Walmart had a somewhat(and I use the term loosely) functioning website, which has only been around for 3 years.

[Arvilish]

I used at least 75% of my coupons at Target so I do not know what I will do now

I cannot even remember Zellers as I never couponed prior to Target's opening except for some FPC [from Listia arrr]. I. am. sad!

[barbis9]

Place was always empty.
High prices.
Huge expectations and they fell short.
It was only a matter of time.

The average home is already stretched pretty thin, so how can anyone justify playing that much more for the same product. Customer service is great, but not at inflated prices.

I feel bad for the staff that will be out of jobs, but Target did not listen to the consumer base.

Walmart is king now. (very scary) Even less competition.

I found the prices to be lower than Walmart and some of the higher priced items were of excellent quality.

[thriftygranny]

That's what I absolutely do not get about this whole Target thing. Everything people are complaining was wrong with Target they've put up with for how long with Walmart? And yet Walmart who's getting worse by the day is still in business and Target is leaving.
The only valid difference between the two stores is the Walmart had a somewhat(and I use the term loosely) functioning website, which has only been around for 3 years.

This has stumped me from the beginning, I think people's expectations were so high of Target because so many Canadians raved about it when cross border shopping.

[Colsgirl]

I notice that Target has removed and stopped selling all gift certificates (even the Starbucks inside our Target has stopped selling Starbucks GCs). So if you have any Target ones you might want to spend them quickly (remember when Zellers put the liquidation signs up they stopped honoring their own GCs - I wouldn't be surprised if Target went the same way),

[annedougherty]

They underestimated the following things

1. We will put up with empty shelves & supply issues & inventory issues.
2. We will put up with poor selection of merchandise.
3. We will put up with higher prices.
4. We will put up with not even having a proper ecommerce website . target.ca is a joke. You need to have a proper online presence thesedays where you can see prices, stock , selection etc, even if you can't order online. Almost everyone does a proper web serach before heading out.
5. No proper marketing,advertising or grand opening sales etc, whenever they opened a new store in your area.


They had 2 years to fix all this , but instead of dealing with it , they just kept on making excuses & never really fixed it.

They just assumed that their name was enough & people will just flock to them , and it was a given. You have to work for it & earn it. They never understood that Canadian consumers have markedly different shopping habits than Americans.

I think they underestimated Canada's love for Walmart crap.

[Midnightly]

A lot of news outlets claim that the store's competitors included Walmart.ca and Amazon.ca, but honestly Target has a lot of home decor stuff that puts it up against everybody from Homesense and Home Outfitters to Canadian Tire and Loblaws.

I think Amazon.ca is self-destructing through the power of its own sales algorithms. They adjust their process based on web traffic and complex mathematical equations that sometimes create hundred dollar paperclips. They are not picky about the quality of vendors they allow into their marketplace either, and together these factors have made the store a less enticing place to shop.

There is nothing at all sexy about anything that you buy at Walmart.ca, and everything is utilitarian, with little thought to design and a whole lotta cheap.

Target to me was a combination of several home stores, plus a bit of (SDM, Loblaws, CT, Zellers, Sears, Best Buy)

They were good in a few categories and sold up-to-date electronics, nice things for the home, upscale grocery, basic hardware. In the end nothing really truly new but what was unique was assembling all of these things in once place. I estimated I needed about 4-6 hours to thoroughly shop the store and truly know what they had in there. Too bad I couldn't do that at home in my pyjamas. Anyway, it's not that they had just one competitor but that they were competing with a lot of established companies, even ironically HBC on the house & home front.

Plus they were tied into the lousy locations (malls serviced by busses, rather than shopping centers with large parking lots for cars owned by people with homes who have money and care about design) that meant they were not in contact with the consumers they wanted. Also, they did not buy Zellers sales data from them so they had no idea what people were using Zellers for in their lives.

Our Zellers was nuts: they carried three different brands of 2 kg white sugar at three different prices shelved in three spots.

I think they had that Zellers kinda stank hanging on to them, the locations, the store sizes, and all that. Zellers cursed.

I'll probably be able to find a lot of the same stuff, but I will have to travel more.

i

i agree with alot of what you said... especially about zellers.. they were plagued by zellers simply because they were both "red" people saw the red signage and automatically compared them to zellers... plus they all went into a formally owned zellers location and people just straight out assumed that target killed zellers (all that red afterall) it's target's fault zellers folded, it's targets fault these people lost their jobs, target had alotta blame before the doors even opened... plus they were then plagued with issues with stock

[Midnightly]

i think peoples expectations were also skewed.. they expected target to be transplanted from the states directly into canada... the same store with the same products with the same price points and they also expected these stores to open with all gears running at full tilt.. that also didn't happen.. these stores opened and had kinks to work out and people didn't seem to like that fact.. i still don't get why people will take crap from walmart over and over again but 1 thing negative about target and it's screaming about boycotting and that the company is evil

[d.ot]

I think they underestimated Canada's love for Walmart crap.

I think it depends on which department though
I always found Target to be much more expensive food-wise -- unless there were clearance deals. Otherwise, WM had the best deals with price matching and coupons.
I dont buy clothes/shoes at either location -- WM has poor quality (unless it's a known brand of good quality) and Target leaves much to be desired style wise
HABA goes to Target mainly for the clearance deals but they also had some pretty great brands

Let's not forget that most of us use coupons or price match on here, whereas most people don't do either. No one I know would take the time to figure out manufacturer + Target coupon matchups to get the best deal. People just want to get in and out. How can the company come out on top when most of us shopped their 70-90% deals?

I am sad to see them go mostly because I think Walmart needs the competition. I dont think it's fair to blame the people though. It's like saying, you should have paid full price to make sure the company sustained itself lol
A lot went wrong along the way and it's just unfortunate all around... regardless of whether people liked or disliked the store.

[Lyssia510]

I think they underestimated Canada's love for Walmart crap.

LMAO!!! I just sprayed pop out my nose from laughing so hard!