Stopped by Target on the way home tonight.......

[DainBramaged]

DEAD. 4 registers open. MAYBE 25 cars in the parking lot. It was JUST like a typical winter Wednesday night in February, not Christmas shopping season. Got a GREAT deal on a Lexmark wireless keyboard and mouse for $14 (regularly $29.95). Only FOUR registers open, less than usual, and the manager was sending people home because they were planning on closing at NINE and not ten (I knows the manager, she is one of us)..... Drove past Home Depot and Costco on the way home. Even emptier. Could see Wally World from RT 80, empty parking lot too.


Not good.

[jemsan]

1. Where are you located??

[DainBramaged]

10. JOISEY (what exit) one of the richest counties in the US of A

[tabbycat31]

12. I gotta ask what exit

I drove by Target today on the way to do a copy job for garden state equality, and the parking lot was packed.

[DainBramaged]

14. RT 80 Westbound (Rockaway Mall)

:hi: :hug:

PS we're the seventh richest county in America according to Forbes.

[tabbycat31]

23. aahh North Jersey

exit 100 B here--- still a rich area but I'm not sure where we rank according to Forbes

[DainBramaged]

24. THREE NJ Counties in the top 10

Hunterdon and Somerset along with Morris.....


:hi:

[tabbycat31]

29. I wonder where mine ranks

Monmouth

I know my home county (Westchester, NY) has to be in the top 10.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. Now, maybe it's different during the day...

My husband and I drove by ours today on the way to lunch, and on the way back too, and both times the lot was jammed...

Our mall has been crowded too...

Still, maybe it's because where I live hasn't been hit as hard as some...

Dunno!

:shrug:

[Shell Beau]

3. My Target looks completely opposite.

I went by during lunch today, and it was packed! Packed!!! On a weekday at lunch!

[MercutioATC]

4. I got similar reports from friends who shopped on Black Friday.

Anecdotal, to be sure, but they said most stores had no lines...just a few people shopping.

[Uben]

5. Not a problem here.....

Home Depot had a lot of customers, had to park at the back of the Walmart lot, and CVS, which usually only has a couple of cars in the lot, had about ten. I guess it's because the economy around here is better than most places. I have shopped on-line for Xmas for years. Why wade through waves of people in flu season when you can shop from the comfort of home?

[itsrobert]

6. Drove by Fry's, Walmart and Target today

Along with Kohl's. All parking lots were full.

[justabob]

7. business has been terrible where I work

I wait tables in a nice casual dining restaurant situated in a shopping center. Business has been awful, definitely no uptick from merry christmas shoppers.

[Thickasabrick]

8. I knew those reports about consumer shopping picking up were bogus.

Thanks for the report. I don't ever go anywhere so I have no idea how my local shops are doing.

[dysfunctional press]

16. they were hoping for a self-fulfilling prophecy...

they think that people just need to think that other people are shopping in order to go out and spend.
they don't seem to realize that people have nothing left TO spend. :shrug:

[endless october]

9. unemployed people don't buy stuff.

i do have a soft spot for target, though. even though most of their stuff is probably imported like everyone else's stuff.

target and kohls are the places i go when i don't go local.

[bbinacan]

11. Target has been packed

here in SW PA.

[Sebastian Doyle]

13. Target is usually INSANE the entire month of December.

I try to avoid going there even as much as the mall during the Xmas carnage.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

15. Same in the Bay Area - dead.

In fact my friend who was driving said she didn't even recognize the parking lot because it was so empty.

[DainBramaged]

17. It's nice not fighting.....

:hi:

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

18. Well, we'll probably resume our regularly scheduled mutual ranting soon enough.

But until then, :toast:

[DainBramaged]

19. Ummmm, no, I intend to be more civil.........

Sometimes ya gotta say, whatever...........


:toast: :fistbump:

[Ignis]

26. No kidding.

I did doughnuts in the parking lot of the nearby mall, it was so empty.

[TwixVoy]

20. As a former manager at Target

I find it amusing how people who don't work retail (and may have NEVER worked retail) make judgements about how well a store is doing by the parking lot being full as so many on this thread have done.

If you go back to when I started posting on DU you will find my posts indicating that sales nation wide at Target had fallen off a cliff. (this was before most people had any clue what kind of financial disaster was on the way) I was called a liar by many people because the store they visited was "full of people". I suppose having access to the internal nation wide sales numbers that said otherwise just wasn't good enough compared to "the parking lot is full here".

I still keep in touch with some of my former co-workers in Target management spots. From what I have heard from all of them sales have NOT gotten better, and are generally worse than they were at this time last year. Too bad most people don't realize that is the figure that matters... not "how many people are in the store".

[Nikki Stone1]

22. +1

:thumbsup:

[XemaSab]

27. The difference between 100 people in the store

and 95 people in the store, while not apparent to the casual observer, would certainly be apparent at the register.

Moreover, the difference between someone spending $100 in a visit and someone spending $95 in a visit is also clear at the register.

According to my back-of-the-envelope math, this is the difference between $10,000 and $9,025, and assuming that 50% of the cost at the register is due to fixed costs such as keeping the lights on, keeping the trucks moving in, and just paying for the goods on the shelves (without including the costs of paying employees), that's a 20% hit. :o

A store such as Target could try to cushion the blow by cutting staff hours, but that can only go so far.

(Having been only marginally involved in retail, my figures may be off, but the bottom line is that a few percent here and there makes a massive difference if looked at on a massive scale.)

[ima_sinnic]

32. I shop quite a bit at Target.com w my Target card

any idea how sales from the Target website fit into the figures you're talking about?
Perhaps a decline in brick-&-mortar store sales is being compensated by online sales?

I like Target, and I don't want it to fold.

[HipChick]

21. I as much online-shopping as possible

rarely enter the stores until I have too..with coupons/free shipping who needs to waste gas

[XemaSab]

25. Monday night I went by the "mall" here in Redding

There were about 50 cars in the parking lot. x(

[Hannah Bell]

31. ours was the busiest it's been in over a year. lot was half-full.

[liberal_at_heart]

28. Different regions experience different conditions

I'm sorry your area seems to be suffering. The target in my neighborhood is always packed. It is always hard to find a parking space especially after 5 pm. During the weekends it doesn't matter what time of the day you go, it is hard to find a parking space.

[spinbaby]

30. May be a regional thing

Our Target was packed the other night --had to park way out at the edge of the lot and hike in.

[RebelOne]

33. Not in my neighborhood Target here in North Georgia.

No matter what day or what time, the parking lot is always full.