A blog post published by Target Corp. outlined the company’s strategic thinking about its store base even as it recounted expansions and upgrades to the brick-and-mortar side of the business, including those that have enhanced digital operations.
Target continues adding large-format stores, which average 125,000 square feet, the company pointed out, with a dozen opening in 2023. As the company moved forward through the year, Target added nine stores that fall under its small format designation, ranging from a 20,000 square feet unit in Auburn Toomer’s Corner, AL, which operates as a one-stop shop for local college students, to a 92,000 square foot three-story location in the Kings Plaza Shopping Center, Brooklyn, NY.
Then, in 2023, Target opened stores in four new markets: Jamestown, NY; Kill Devil Hills, NC; Quincy, IL; and Grass Valley, CA.
Target remodeled more than 160 existing stores across the United States in 2023, making strategic upgrades such as adding more space for drive-up and order pickup, new fitting rooms and remodeled team spaces. The company added more shop-in-shops to enhance the customer experience by providing convenient access to top brands. During the course of the year, Target debuted 140 Ulta Beauty locations, 40 Apple Shops, and 20 Disney Clubhouses, in addition to refreshing or adding more than 80 Starbucks Cafes.
Since 2017, Target has opened more than 180 new stores and remodeled more than half of its network, the company maintained. It has reconfigured basic store plans over that period in part to prepare its physical location to serve as fulfillment hubs for digital orders. To support its fulfillment development, Target has also been expanding a network of sortation centers where workers pick, batch and route orders that store team members pack for local delivery. It is also testing new types of fulfillment facilities, such as the Target Last Mile Delivery extension that opened last year in Smyrna, GA. Target developed the facility to fit into the distribution network in a way that can expand its fulfillment reach, the company noted. Target also has enhanced pickup and drive-up services, which include providing delivery of Starbucks products to drive-up customers.
The blog indicated that Target has additional plans to enhance its store system as it tackles 2024, although it omitted the specifics. However, the trends in store networks, as exemplified in the post, demonstrate the continued centrality of physical stores in Target’s thinking, which will likely result in the ongoing expansion of existing and new brick-and-mortar initiatives in the year ahead.
