Target to Close 12 Underperforming Stores
While Target is doubling down on brick-and-mortar retail, the Minneapolis-based retailer also has decided to pull the plug on a dozen underperforming stores. The company on Monday began notifying store employees at the 12 affected stores, which are slated to close on Feb. 3. While competitors such as Macy’s, J.C. Penney and Sears have been closing many stores to retool their businesses for the digital age, Target has been closing a handful a year while focusing on opening new smaller-format stores in urban and dense suburban areas. Target has accelerated its pace of store openings to 32 new stores this year and 35 new locations planned for next year.
Total Retail's Take: Even for a retailer as committed to brick-and-mortar as Target is — in addition to opening new stores, the department store chain has plans to refurbish 1,000 of its 1,800 stores by 2020 — there comes a point when it no longer makes business sense to keep open store locations that are consistently losing money. Unfortunately, that appears to be the case with the 12 stores targeted for closure in early 2018.
“It’s not a decision we make lightly,” said Kristy Welker, a Target spokeswoman. “We have a really rigorous process in place in evaluating the performance of a store in deciding when to close or relocate a store. We close a store after seeing several years of decreasing profitability.”
