I have been reading much about Target and its continued evolution. I have worked with this retailer for 25 years, made great friends, and have shipped tremendous amount of product.
At this time it is breaking the mold for a department store. Target is the eighth largest department store chain in the USA. Traditionally have 135,000 square feet of floor space. Now it introduces a new concept with a smaller footprint 14,000 square feet to 21,000 square feet and focused on the community where it stands.
This is a study of the apparel section of the newly opened east village location in NYC. I will skip over the protest about the vanishing look and history of the East Village, there is plenty of blog posts regarding that if you are interested. I am looking at the floor space devoted to apparel vs home goods and food , The young mens and boys floor is having about 18% of the space. It is merchandised with 2 fixtures for boys apparel , and 2 for boys accessories and intimate. On the young mens side we see triple the space. The offering is clean and very core driven, color is safe and easy to understand. They have a few fashion styles and it looked like they had been sold out.
In looking at the surrounding neighborhood you have lower income residence of the East Village, and directly across the street Stuyvesant Town – Peter Cooper Village (no relation) 25,000 residence with an average household income of $83,646. If that isn’t enough traffic the second avenue subway will connect right outside the front door when completed.
So it is had to argue that it isn’t a good location. there has never been such a department store in this aria The closest option was when the k-mart opened on Astor Place in 1996. K-mart was not intended to make profit, rather is is intended as visible displays of corporate vigor to the often skeptical financial community of Wall Street analysts, many of whom live and work in Manhattan.
Target’s mission is looking very different.
