The stores would be of the “small-format” type, which means they will offer full-size stores’ offerings with a dash of customization. The outlets will be set up to cater to more residents of Bay Area and provide them an inspiring and convenient shopping experience overall.
Scheduled for opening in 2019, the stores would be Target’s 35th and 36th planned/opened stores within the Bay Area. The Walmart competitor doesn’t have a dearth of outlets in the region, but those have not reached out to Bay Area’s residents the way Target’s management would have liked. The company, therefore, wants to change that by adopting a slightly different sales approach.
Located close to Lake Merritt, the Oakland establishment would cover a 33,000 square feet space and hire 65 people in total. Target entered into a lease agreement with The Hanover Company for the Oakland space. The San Francisco store, on the other hand, would be a bit larger, covering 40,000 square feet, and would employ nearly 100 people. The lease arrangement here was entered with Harrigan Weidenmuller Co. These small outlets, according to Target, are ideal for locations close to college campuses or urban areas.
Full-size or regular Target stores aren’t cut out for towns and suburbs. The buyer community there aren’t as dense and diverse as buyers in the cities. The footfalls and sales in general do not therefore justify the costs of running a full-fledged Target outlet in smaller locations, such as San Francisco. Moreover, traditional Target stores are not easy to customize to a community’s likings.
Small-format outlets have been designed to reach out to a new set of buyers in dense suburban neighbourhoods. The stores would offer a holistic shopping experience with an assortment that has been curated specially for the community. In other words, visitors can expect to see both essential items and novel goods under the same roof.
There is also ‘order pickup’ facility that lets buyers order online so that they could pick up the item from the store right away, without having to spend time and effort looking for the product(s) they want. Not to mention, this would also cut down the tendency to overspend or buy items that were not originally planned to be purchased.