First Sales Drop In Two Years Sends Target Execs Scrambling For Answers

WTF? Where Are All My Customers?

From the Minneapolis Star Tribune:

Target’s shelves are better stocked than ever before. It has added thousands of new grocery items. And it has rolled out new offerings such as the jazzy in-house Cat & Jack kids clothing line. 

So why haven’t shoppers visited Target Corp.’s stores in the last few months as they have in the past? 

That was the troubling question on analysts’ minds after the Minneapolis-based retailer reported a surprising 2.2-percent drop in traffic during the May-to-July period — its first decline in that metric in a year and a half, and the biggest slide it’s seen since the Great Recession outside of the massive data breach a few years ago. 

The company’s shares tumbled in trading Wednesday as Target also reported its first comparable U.S. sales drop in two years and lowered its forecast for the second half of the year, including during the holidays, when it now expects sales to be flat to down 2 percent. 

It was a stark change from several months ago when Target executives said sales could grow as much as 2.5 percent this year. The stock closed Wednesday at $70.63, down $4.85 or 6.4 percent.