The history of Target Corporation

Target Corporation Company

Target Corporation Company is the second-largest discount store retailer in the United States. The company is only behind Wal-Mart in ranking. Dayton and Green (2008) point out that the company was created by George Dayton, and Minneapolis, Minnesota serves as its corporate headquarters. Target has been expanding for many years, which has helped it become the second-largest retailer in the US.

Core Products and Services Offered by Target Corporation

Target Corporation is a retailer with a retail structure that combines Target, a discount retailer, Super Target, a supermarket, and a flexible format retailer all under the Target brand. Because of this, the company provides a range of goods that may be found in a retail setting.

A Brief History

The company was originally started in the year 1902 where it was first named as Goodfellow Dry Goods, and a year later it was named Dry Goods Company, but later in the year 1910, the company was named Dayton Company. In the year 1962, the company opened the first Target store in Roseville, Minnesota ad in the year 1967 the parent company was renamed Dayton Corporation. The Target Corporation earned itself a highest earning division in the 1970s and the 1980 and 90s it was expanding stores nationwide. In 2000, the company was renamed as the Target Corporation, and in 2004 the company divested itself over its last department store. As to date in 2017, Target Corporation operates 1806 store throughout the United States.

Key Current Competitors

The Company generates revenue through the offering of competitively priced goods. Therefore there are similar companies that are competing directly with Target Corporation that include Wal-Mart and Costco. In the retail industry, they are not manufactured by the retailers, but they are obtained from the manufacturers through a contract agreement, and so does Target Corporation.

SWOT Analysis

The first strength is that the company is well known after Wal-Mart as a discount retailer of the products or items displayed; therefore it has a good market position. Secondly, the company is enjoying a 30th position in the Fortune 500 list. Thirdly, Target Corporation has a huge market share in the United States because it covers all locations in the country except Vermont. The fourth strength is that the company has diversified its store chain. Every year there is an increase in revenue of the Target Corporation and the current revenue is $67.390 billion. The company is known to be having an appealing environment that is safe and sound which in return attracts many customers to come and shop at the quality places. Target Corporation as rated as the top gift card seller in the United States and this fact has attracted many customers.

Weaknesses

Target Corporation has neglected the international presence because its demographic focus is only in the United States. The company is undergoing some intensive involvement in lawsuits making it lose its attention on the market somehow. The products of the company are a bit expensive compared to Wal-Mart’s products because they emphasize on quality of the product during manufacturing from the manufacturer. The company’s wages are not attractive to the employees. Its Brand’s popularity is seen to be relatively low compared to the competitors’ brands. Inside the malls of the company, the atmosphere is too silent for a person to shop. In many occasion, there have been complaining concerning the selling of over dated products or brands from the company.

Opportunities

The company has announced an expansion to Canada through the acquiring of a Canadian Zeller’s chain. There is some estimation that there will be 100 to 150 stores in Canada that will facilitate the capturing of other customers who are outside the United States. The company is now focusing on reducing operational costs and having an increase in revenue ratios. The company has private labeled products that are on the way which will increase commendably because they are more focused on the target customers as well.

Threats

Target Corporation is facing competition from Wal-Mart and K-mart since both of them share almost same products range, and they share the same place of service. The second threat is that there is a new inflation force that is forcing out the consumers of various products to move towards the low price rather than the quality products (Wilson, 2017). Therefore Target Corporation can easily suffer a blow of losing consumers of their goods because their main emphasize is on the quality of a product and not the price that the product has. There is an increase in the interest rates of the products in Target Corporation due to an increase in the government tax. The increase in interest rates risks pushing away customers.

References

Dayton, B., & Green, E. (2008). The birth of Target (1st ed.). Minneapolis: Priv. published.

Wilson, R. (2017). Target Corporation: Maintaining Relevance in the 21st Century Gaming Market. Kellogg School Of Management Cases, 1(1), 1-25. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/case.kellogg.2016.000332