History of Target Corporation
The history of Target Corporation first began in 1902 by George Dayton. The company was originally named Goodfellow Dry Goods in June 1902 before being renamed the Dayton's Dry Goods Company in 1903 and later the Dayton Company in 1910. The first Target store opened in Roseville, Minnesota in 1962 while the parent company was renamed the Dayton Corporation in 1967. It became the Dayton-Hudson Corporation after merging with the J.L. Hudson Company in 1969 and held ownership of several department store chains including Dayton's, Hudson's, Marshall Field's, and Mervyn's. In 2000, the Dayton-Hudson Corporation was renamed to Target Corporation.
1902–1961: Dayton Company
The
By the 1920s, the Dayton Company was a multimillion-dollar business and filled the entire six-story building. Dayton began transferring parts of the business to his son Nelson after an earlier 43-year-old son David died in 1923. The company made its first expansion with the acquisition of the Minneapolis-based
Nelson Dayton was replaced as president by his son Donald after his death in 1950; he ran the company alongside four of his cousins instead of under a single person, and replaced the Presbyterian guidelines with a more
1962–1975: Founding of Target
While working for the Dayton company,
In 1966,
In 1968, Target updated its bullseye logo, opting for a more modern look, and expanded into
In 1969, the company acquired the
In 1970, Target Stores added seven new units, including two units in
1975–1981: Early prosperity
In 1975, Target opened two stores, reaching 49 units in nine states and $511 million (~$2.25 billion in 2023) in sales. That year, the Target discount chain became Dayton-Hudson's top revenue producer. In 1976 Dayton-Hudson was the eighth largest retailer in the U.S.,[18] and Target opened four new units and reached $600 million (~$2.5 billion in 2023) in sales. Macke was promoted to president and chief executive officer of Target Stores. 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.[2] In 1977, Target Stores opened seven new units and Stephen Pistner became president of Dayton-Hudson, with Macke succeeding him as chairman and chief executive officer of Target Stores. The senior vice president of Dayton-Hudson, Bruce G. Allbright, moved to Target Stores and succeeded Kenneth Macke as president. In 1978, the company acquired Mervyn's[19] and became the 7th largest general merchandise retailer in the United States. Target Stores opened eight new stores that year, including its first shopping mall anchor store in Grand Forks, North Dakota.[20] In 1979, it opened 13 new units to a total of 80 Target stores in eleven states. Dayton-Hudson reached $3 billion in sales, with $1.12 billion coming from the Target store chain alone.[2]
Dayton-Hudson sold its nine owned shopping centers in 1978 to Equitable Life Assurance Company, including the 5 owned in
1982–1999: Nationwide expansion
Since the launch of Target Stores, the company had focused its expansion in the central United States. In 1982, it expanded into the
In 1987, the acquired Gemco units reopened as Target units, and Target Stores expanded into
In 1990, it acquired
In 1996,
In 1998, Dayton-Hudson acquired
In 1999, Dayton-Hudson acquired Fedco and its ten stores in a move to expand its SuperTarget operation into Southern California. It reopened six of these stores under the Target brand and sold the other four locations to Wal-Mart, Home Depot, and the Ontario Police Department, and its store count rose to 912 units in 44 states with sales reaching $26.0 billion.[20][37][42] Revenue for Dayton-Hudson increased to $33.7 billion, and net income reached $1.14 billion, passing $1 billion for the first time and nearly tripling the 1996 profits of $463 million. This increase in profit was due mainly to the Target chain, which Ulrich had focused on making feature high-quality products for low prices.[2] On September 7, 1999, the company relaunched its Target.com website as an e-commerce site as part of its discount retail division. The site initially offered merchandise that differentiated its stores from its competitors, such as its Michael Graves brand.[43]
2000–2011: Target Corporation
In January 2000, Dayton-Hudson Corporation changed its name to Target Corporation and its ticker symbol to TGT; by then, between 75 percent and 80 percent of the corporation's total sales and earnings came from Target Stores, while the other four chains—
In 2001, it launched its online gift registry, and in preparation for this, it wanted to operate its upscale Department Stores Division, consisting of 19 Dayton's, 21 Hudson's, and 24 Marshall Field's stores, under a unified department store name. It announced in January that it was renaming its Dayton's and Hudson's stores to Marshall Field's. The name was chosen for multiple reasons: out of the three, Marshall Field's was the most recognizable name in the Department Stores Division, its base in Chicago was bigger than Dayton's base in Minneapolis and Hudson's base in Detroit, Chicago was a major travel hub, and it was the largest chain of the three.
In 2002, it expanded to 1,147 units, which included stores in
In 2006, Target completed construction of the Robert J. Ulrich Center in Embassy Golf Links in Bangalore, and Target planned to continue its expansion into
In 2007, Target built its first food distribution center in Lake City, Florida, which opened in 2008.[51]
2011–2015: Initiatives, Canada and data breach
On January 22, 2014, Target "informed workers that it is terminating 475 positions at its offices globally".[52] On March 5, 2014, Target Corp.'s chief information officer Beth Jacob resigned, having been in the role since 2008; this is thought to be due to the company's overhaul of its information security systems.[53]
On June 15, 2015, CVS Health announced its agreement to acquire Target's pharmacy and retail clinic businesses. The deal expanded CVS to new markets in Seattle, Denver, Portland and Salt Lake City. The acquisition includes more than 1,660 pharmacies in 47 states. CVS will operate them through a store-within-a-store format. Target's nearly 80 clinic locations will be rebranded as MinuteClinic, and CVS plans to open up to 20 new clinics in their stores within three years.[54]
In July 2015, the company opened Target Open House, a retail space in San Francisco that shows connected home products which can purchased at select Target stores.[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.[57] In addition, the space hosts interviews with company founders which have their products on display at the store.[58]
Target Canada
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. The deal was announced to have been made for 1.8 billion dollars. The company stated that they aimed to provide Canadians with a "true Target-brand experience", hinting that its product selection in Canada would vary little from that found in its United States stores.
Target opened its first Canadian stores in March, 2013, and at its peak, Target Canada had 133 stores. 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".[62]
On January 15, 2015, Target announced that all 133 of its Canadian outlets would be closed and liquidated by the end of 2015.[63] The last Target Canada stores closed on April 12, 2015, far ahead of the initial schedule.[61]
2013 security breach
On December 18, 2013, security expert
According to Bloomberg Businessweek, Target's computer security team was notified of the breach via the
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". The data breach has been called the second-largest retail cyber attack in history, Target reported total transactions for the same time last year were down 3-4%, as of December 23, 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.[75] The teen denied the allegation.[76] Later, a 23-year-old Russian, Rinat Shabayev, claimed to be the malware author.[76][77]
On January 29, 2014, a Target spokeswoman said that the individual(s) who hacked its customers' data had stolen credentials from a store vendor, but did not elaborate on which vendor or which credentials were taken.[78]
As the fallout of the data breach continued, on March 6, 2014, Target announced the resignation of its chief information officer and an overhaul of its information security practices. In a further step to restore faith in customers, the company advised that it will look externally for appointments to both the CIO role and a new chief compliance officer role.[79]
On May 5, 2014, Target announced the resignation of its chief executive officer, Gregg Steinhafel. Analysts speculated that the data breach, as well as the financial losses caused by over-aggressive Canadian expansion, contributed to his departure.[80]
2016–2020: Later years
On October 2, 2017, Target announced a new online order service, Drive Up, that allows guests to order merchandise online for pickup outside the store. Guests hit the 'I'm on My Way' button en route to their store. They pull into designated parking spots out front, and soon a Target team member comes out to greet them with their order.[81]
On October 19, 2017, Target announced that they would be opening a small-format store and their first store in
In December 2017, Target announced the corporation's intention to purchase
In May 2018, according to YouGov ratings, Target was determined to be the most popular department store in America. Target was rated 69% positive opinions by America, and 99% of people have heard of it. Women had a 74% positive opinion towards Target, and men had 65%.[85][86]
On a weekend in June 2019, at many Target stores in the U.S., "On Saturday ... shoppers experienced a systems outage that shut down the card readers at check-out registers for close to two hours. On Sunday, there were additional spot outages that the company says were unrelated to Saturday's problems."[87] On social media, the outage was dubbed "The Great Target Outage of '19".[88] Another—although much shorter—checkout register crash happened in 2013, on the same date as the Saturday crash.[87]
In September 2019, Target announced its new rewards program, Target Circle, which would be coming to all Target stores on October 6, 2019. In conjunction, the name of the store's credit and debit card was announced to be changed from "Target REDcard" to "Target RedCard". At its debut, Target Circle allows shoppers to earn 1% back in rewards to use on a future purchase, except when a Target RedCard is used. Target RedCard holders continue to save an instant 5% on their total but now earn votes from a purchase with Target Circle to use on deciding where Target gives its 5% back in the community. The Target Circle rewards program does not use a physical card, but can be used by presenting the Target Wallet in the Target App or entering a mobile phone number at checkout.[citation needed]
On August 25, 2019, Target and
2020–present
On March 13, 2020, Brian Cornell (CEO) took part in
Also, Target expanded its roster of exclusively owned brands with the addition of Mondo Llama, Favorite Day, and Kindfull. Target launched
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.[97][98]
In November 2022, Target blamed the dropping gross margin rate reduction from 28 percent to 24.7 percent in 2022 on shoplifting or "inventory shortage or shrink". The company expects losses due to theft will be $600 million in lost profits in 2022.[99]
In 2024, Target announced that it would be ditching red and bringing in the famous circle to its card service, therefore changing its RedCard name to Target Circle Card, right after the revamp of membership service, but remain on the RedCard benefits the same for its shoppers and hosting a Circle Week for members.[100]
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