The big-box retailer, Target Corporation was able to achieve pretty unbelievable growth numbers despite operating under the pandemic. Target’s Comparable Store Sales were up 17.2% for only the month of November and December while its Same Store Sales were up by 4.2% for those two months.
It can be said that not as many people were going to stores when Covid-19 broke out but Target Corp. went beyond its expected performance and outperformed its peers. Target Corporation (NYSE: TGT) is a merchandise retailer that sells different items through its stores and online platform. The company is also tagged to be the 8th biggest retailer in America.
During the past quarter, TGT’s comparable digital sales were up 102%, traffic was up 4.3% and the average ticket was up by 12.3%. It should be noted that the company was successful in consistently gaining market share in all five of its core merchandise categories. Talking about Target’s ‘same day services’, they have the ‘order pickup’ where customers can order in advance online, and then they could just pick their items up at the store when they get there and they also offer ‘door-to-door’ deliveries. The same day services of Target were up a huge 193% while the order pickup was up over 500% and the door-to-door deliveries were up 300%.
According to Target Corp’s management, they were able to ship 150 million items in December 2020 alone and that was 4 times of what they have done from January to November of last year. “The other thing to note with this is that they don’t give any guidance in terms of what this will mean for their earnings,” said CNBC’s Becky Quick in a CNBC segment. Quick also added, “Because they have so much that’s been fulfilled by the Target stores, about 95%, they say if the target sales are fulfilled by the stores, you get better margins on that. It also means that customers didn’t have to wait around to lose or to get later deliveries,”.
Target Corporation’s shares have a market value of around $100 billion and its stock has accumulated an almost 60% return over the past year. The company will be closed on 2021’s thanksgiving and accordingly, that was a part of their sales strategy. “It’s going to remain closed on Thanksgiving in 2021. That was a strategy that they rolled out this year. They went ahead and had an entire month of Black Friday sales with big discounts and they said that worked. That strategy paid off.”, said Quick while also noting that she has spoken with the company regarding this information. “They did see customers coming in over the entire course of the month. Their associates like the fact that they got off on thanksgiving this year so they’re going to do it again next year.”. The company said that they will have an entire month dedicated for the Big Black Friday sales and emphasized that they will be closed for Thanksgiving day this year.
