Target sinks to new low as customers flee in droves - forcing bosses into drastic move

Daily Mail ^ | 19 November 2025 | BEN SHIMKUS

[lastchance]

Last time I was in a Target the lighting gave me a major headache. Maybe stores should figure how things like lighting and background music choices as well as poor staff keeps customers away.

[NonValueAdded]

Ever since Mark Dayton opened his mouth, I have avoided Target at all costs.

[Nuc 1.1]

Chuckles they won’t. Sears went down this road many years ago. It didn’t work out for them.

[bicyclerepair]

A few years back, before the bathroom stuff, T banned carry in the stores. That was it for me. They didn’t provide protection yet banned me from doing so. F them. Haven’t been since.

[catnipman]

“There are too many out of stocks, too much mess, not enough assistance at registers, so forth.’ “

that’s been my experience the very few times i stopped in to TRY to buy something on sale ... Target is trying to compete with Walmart, Sam’s Club, Costco, and Kroger ... rots of ruck with that ...

[Yardstick]

Target is like a slightly up-class Walmart and was a pretty good shopping experience back in the day. Then they went crazy with the woke stuff. Then they had some sort of a staffing crisis during Covid and never recovered. Both stores in my area are in an absolute shambles and have been for years. Shelves in disarray, etc.

[cyclotic]

The nearest store to me by five miles is a Target so I have no reason to go there.

[Celtic Conservative]

I did Law Enforcement for 25 years. I’ve seen enough of that, thanks.

CC

[gnarledmaw]

Demographics.

Sometimes it looks like there are only 2-4 employees in the whole store in the 3 nearish to here yet no one leaves without going through the one checkout lane.

The store isnt dirty or disheveled.

The shelves are all stocked and organized.

Of course, they dont really sell anything of any real value or interest to most people. Its all just overpriced cheap clothes and junk that middle age white women waste the money that should have gone into their retirement on.

There was a similar thread about Aldis a while back where some people had very different experiences than others had even ever heard of.

I know that the difference between a trashed Aldis and the ones that are organized and clean where I live is the demographics of the surrounding neighborhood. There is no way for the staff to keep up in some of these areas on all the problems caused by customers dumping and shuffling the products on the shelves.

In the same way the Targets that were in a rather large city I lived in 50 years ago were in good neighborhoods with a lot of traffic. Today middle aged white women looking to throw away paychecks dont want to go to those areas because the neighborhood has changed. The three Targets in different cities nearest to me that I was talking about at the beginning are now in areas easily accessible to and pleasant to shop at for buying junk as a form of recreation for middle aged middle class white women.

Did you have a Sears, KMart, or Montgomery Wards near you? Locally we had a small chain called Shopko that also would belong in this group. They all got in trouble for one reason or another and decided to kick their male customers out. They dropped tools, sporting goods, automotive, and garden/yard areas to have more room to expand womens clothes and shelves full of bath bombs. They turned the stores into nothing but overpriced trash quality womens clothes and maybe some toothpaste then they disappeared.

Target has a small area they pretend is hardware with a couple of cheap chinese tools that might work once and a token of the lowest grade yard/garden area. The rest of the store is clothes and some toothpaste. Target just jumped to the end phase years ago and they are hanging there for as long as possible before they collapse.

[real saxophonist]

Hey, you know what Target had back in the day?

Jennifer Connelly.

(welcome to FR)

[jonrick46]

The store in Federal Way saw their luggage used as roll-out vehicles for the thieves. At the end of the day, all of their luggage stock was gone. There were cars in the parking lot with the “fences” taking the goods and giving the thieves money for them. You would think the Federal Way police would put a stop to that racket. You would think Target would talk to the mayor, Jim Ferrel, to put his police into action instead of doughnut patrol.