History of Target Corporation
[2] Having maintained connections as a banker yet lacking previous retail experience, Dayton operated the company as a family enterprise over which he held tight control and enforced strict Presbyterian guidelines.
Consequently, the store forbade the selling of alcohol, refused to advertise in newspapers that sponsored liquor ads, and would not allow any business activity on Sundays.
Dayton died in 1938 and was succeeded by his son Nelson as the president of the $14 million business, who maintained the strict Presbyterian guidelines and conservative management style of his father.
[2] Throughout World War II, Nelson Dayton's managers focused on keeping the store stocked, which led to an increase in revenue.
It began selling alcohol and operating on Sundays and favored a more radical, aggressive, innovative, costly, and expansive management style.
On May 1, 1962, the Dayton Company, using Geisse's concepts, opened its first Target discount store, located at 1515 West County Road B in Roseville, a suburb of Saint Paul, Minnesota.
As a result of its rapid expansion and the top executives' lack of experience in discount retailing, the chain reported its first decrease in profits since its initial years, and Dayton-Hudson considered selling off the Target Stores subsidiary.
The chain's loss in operational revenue was due to overstocking and carrying goods over multiple years, regardless of inventory and storage costs.
Inspired by the Dayton Hudson Foundation, the Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce started the 5% Club (now known as the Minnesota Keystone Program), which honored companies that donated 5% of their taxable incomes to charities.
Stephen Pistner left the parent company to join Montgomery Ward, and Kenneth Macke succeeded him as president of Dayton-Hudson.
In 1982, it expanded into the West Coast market by acquiring 33 FedMart stores in Arizona, California, and Texas and opening a fourth distribution center in Los Angeles.
[25] Bruce Allbright returned to Target Stores as its vice chairman and chief administrative officer, and the chain expanded to 167 units and $2.41 billion in sales.
It founded the Plums off-price apparel specialty store chain with four units in the Los Angeles area, with an intended audience of middle-to-upper income women.
Floyd Hall left the company and Bruce Allbright succeeded him as chairman and chief executive officer of Target Stores.
Bruce Allbright became president of Dayton-Hudson, and Bob Ulrich succeeded him as chairman and chief executive officer of Target Stores.
It operated four Smarts units out of former Target stores in Rancho Cucamonga, California, Des Moines, Iowa, El Paso, Texas, and Indianapolis, Indiana, that each closed out merchandise in nearby distribution centers.
This increase in profit was due mainly to the Target chain, which Ulrich had focused on making feature high-quality products for low prices.
[55][56] The space, located in the Metreon Shopping Center, adopts the same layout as a house so it can show real world use cases for the showcased products.
[58] On January 13, 2011, Target announced its expansion into Canada, when it purchased the leaseholds for up to 220 stores of the Canadian sale chain Zellers, owned by the Hudson's Bay Company.
However, the expansion into Canada was beset with problems, including supply chain issues that resulted in stores with aisles of empty shelves and higher-than-expected retail prices.
Target Canada racked up losses of $2.1 billion in its short life, and the store's botched expansion was characterized by the Canadian and US media as a "spectacular failure",[59] "an unmitigated disaster",[60][61] and "a gold standard case study in what retailers should not do when they enter a new market".
[61] On December 18, 2013, security expert Brian Krebs broke news[64] that Target was investigating a major data breach "potentially involving millions of customer credit and debit card records".
[68] Target encouraged customers who shopped at its US stores (online orders were not affected) during the specified timeframe to closely monitor their credit and debit cards for irregular activity.
The retailer confirmed that it is working with law enforcement, including the United States Secret Service, "to bring those responsible to justice".
[70] As an apology to the public, all Target stores in the United States gave retail shoppers a 10% storewide discount for the weekend of December 21–22, 2013.
[73][74] According to Time magazine, a 17-year-old Russian teen was suspected to be the author of the Point of Sale (POS) malware program, "BlackPOS", which was used by others to attack unpatched Windows computers used at Target.
[85][86] On a Saturday, June 15, 2019, at many Target stores in the U.S., shoppers experienced a systems outage that shut down the card readers at check-out registers for close to two hours causing backed up lines.
This model led Target to become a market leader this year, in addition to sales of products that were popularly purchased at the time, such as home furnishing, food, and a lot of toilet paper.
[95] Also, Target expanded its roster of exclusively owned brands by adding Mondo Llama, Favorite Day, and Kindfull.
[96] In March 2022, Target converted its store in Vista, California to an all-renewable energy facility by adding solar carports to the parking lot as a company pilot for the entire chain.
