Target CEO Brian Cornell says shoppers are pulling back, even on groceries, as they feel stressed about their budgets.
In an interview with CNBC’s Becky Quick that aired Thursday morning, he emphasized that the retailer has posted seven consecutive quarters of declining sales of discretionary items, such as apparel and toys, in terms of both dollars and units.
“But even in food and beverage categories, over the last few quarters, the units, the number of items they’re buying, has been declining,” he said in the interview.
No shit. Groceries have gone up 40% in the past 1-2 years for no real reason while wages have not and things like housing are going up too. Amazing that people would be buying less ‘units’.
No doubt. I’m starting to eat healthier because a bag of Doritos is like $5 now when I used to buy it for $2.50-3.00. That’s just one example, but across my snacking ‘units’, everything is outrageous.
I’m eating less and healthier ‘units’.
Gone up 40% in cost and down 20% in quantity
And in quality. Seems like a lot of food items are using cheaper ingredients.
and things like housing are going up too
You’ve noticed the trees but missed the forest. Housing is so astronomically worse. Sure, it sucks to buy bread, but have you looked at mortgage rates??
I’m aware of the conditions of the housing market including interest rates, yes.
Not for many years. Buying a home is a fantasy I let go of. Maybe if I leave the US someday…
People can afford mortgages?
Mortgage rates aren’t the real issue IMO, but it is an indicator. The real issue is a mix of rent and food prices, which have both gone up drastically. Add to that financing costs for cars and you have basically increased the most common expenses most households have.
Mortgage interest isn’t something the bottom 50% need to interact with, rent, food, and cars are.
Hmmm. We raised the prices on EVERYTHING and shoppers aren’t buying as much.
No shit.
If shoppers are buying less they should just try increasing the price. More revenue per sale you don’t even need those lousy shoppers who left! What could go wrong?
I mean, what does a banana even cost, $10?
“We tried raising prices to meet our margin targets, and now we’re all out of ideas”
-every MBA at Target
They are finding the stone is running out of blood.
Is it really ‘pulling back’ when consumers are priced out of those things?
Who is buying anything at this point, I mean seriously? The only thing my wife and I buy now is food, and we hunt, literally hunt for the lowest possible prices on any item before we buy anything. These people who spend 1000 dollars on a concert or 500 dollars for running shoes actually blow my mind.
I thought you literally hunt meant you and your wife are out there with rifles taking down a deer. Or somebody else’s chicken
It’s sort of not a bad idea but it’s also not a good idea. At least I got a neighbor who has chickens and she gives me eggs
Prices are just getting that bad.
mm, yappy dog hot dog
The people who spend a thousand on concert tickets or five hundred on shoes will be complaining about their credit card debt on Facebook next month.
It took me a while to get it through my head why people who I knew were making less than I do had significantly nicer stuff. The difference is that I own what I have. They don’t.
I’m fortunate that after many years of struggle and single parenthood that I’m finally in a place with a comfortable income and free of debt except a small mortgage. Nonetheless, give or take a couple of cheap flights to go see friends a couple times a year, I still live like I’m struggling. That shit will burn into your mind if you suffer through it long enough.
Caveat: In spite of what I just wrote, I still have to work until I collapse and die at my desk. It’s a pretty great future for me presently in my fifties. Only another thirty or forty years to go before I can afford to stop working entirely. Save your money when you’re young if at all possible, kids.
Middle class sucks. Doing well now but I know it will take so little for it all to go to hell. Glad things are getting slightly better for you.
The people who spend a thousand on concert tickets or five hundred on shoes will be complaining about their credit card debt on Facebook next month.
Or not. Because they could just be well off.
I’m still buying things, but only because I plan for it (with the exception of taking advantage of a very short term deal with smile direct club to straighten my teeth for $1000 this week, which I had savings that could cover it). Just a few years ago I was quite comfortable and able to buy luxury items on a fairly regular basis. Today I’m working a second job to make ends meet.
People who have recession-proof employment that is who is buying stuff.
In a society that deletes the middle class, prioritizes the oligopoly in which three fucking people own more than the bottom 50% (in 2017, before the great covid wealth transfer), and every goddamn product (necessity or no) is overpriced to fuck because a handful of companies owns the majority of the “competitors”…
it’s almost like people CAN’T AFFORD to not “pull back” on even groceries. Fuck capitalism, fuck the oligopoly, fuck this fucked planet. Humanity is a cancer
“People with only $100 to spend are still only spending $100 on things! And we raised prices and everything!”
These rubes figured out what compound interest is! We’ll be ruined if people only but what they can afford!!
underrated comment.
People just aren’t buying from Target
Among my peers (early/mid 20s to early 30s) everyone explicitly avoids grocery shopping at target because it’s so much more expensive than other big box retailers. Target is for the occasional home decor items or household items, but very rarely food in my experience.
The only thing I have noticed is that every piece of men’s clothing I have bought from them has worked out for me. It didn’t die quickly or have some weird defect. I tend to shop there for clothing for that reason.
The last time I went to target it sort of skeeved me out. I bought two bookshelves, and once I paid there were two employees that seemed to want to get really close and follow my wife and I out the door. So I paid for something and probably ended up in their database as a shoplifter.
Are you sure they weren’t just waiting to see if you needed help lifting the bookshelves into your car?
If they were doing that, they could use their word-noises like adult human beings.
And they didn’t help, so your comment doesn’t make sense.
Not always, friend. Being a human/communication is hard. It’s also entirely likely that they had walkies in and their manager was telling them to keep an eye out for you in case you did need an employee nearby to ask for help. I think your original comment assuming conspiratorial malice instead of just much-more-common awkwardness is the comment that doesn’t make sense.
Yep it’s getting skeevy. I think Target is the next Kmart.
Yes, I have the same experience there. It’s ridiculous. I rarely go there anymore because of that, and everything being expensive.
Edit: sorry, this comment was meant for someone else! Lemmy tacked it under yours for some reason.
I go there to window shop and never ever buy anything. I visit around this time of year because I know less people will be there and I can have peace - just never buy there. Now they get traffic and not a purchase, whoopsie.
When you wring the middle class for every spare cent they have, eventually money is going to stop falling out no matter how hard you twist them.
I live in a country where wages are linked to a central index.
The index measures how expensive life is becoming. If the prices of products and services rise, the index rises accordingly. If the figure exceeds the so-called central index, benefits and wages will automatically increase.
So, this happened in October again and next month I’ll have an increase of 2% in wages.
It’s more complicated than that, but most countries should use this to protect at the very least handicapped, sick or unemployed people who live on benefits.
It’s not much, but it helps in a way.
I stopped going when they replaced 90% of the cashiers with self-checkout and the lines tripled in size.
There were times where I spent more time in line than I did shopping there.
Unexpected item in bagging area. Please ask for assistance from the one employee overseeing all thirty six self checkout stations.
I’ve genuinely never had that experience at Target. I can scan everything in my cart without once putting it in the bagging area and the self-checkouts at Target don’t give a shit.
Target’s grocery prices are really high and their selection is mediocre. I can go to different stores and save 20%+ on many items.
Maybe shoppers are just pulling back on groceries at Target.
There’s very few things I can only get at target. Or that are vastly cheaper at target.
Even if I can get it at target, if it’s locked and I need to wait a long time for a worker, who keeps bitching on the radio that he needs to finish the shift and clock out… I just kinda get the feeling that target isn’t worth it.
They no longer stock unique things. They treat their stores with ALDI level of staff but keep things locked up.
Why not just shop at Wegmans, LIDL, IKEA, Trader Joe’s, Meijer, or at least Fred Meyer/Kroger.
Fuck if I really need convenience the experience of picking shit up and just walking out of Amazon go is addictive compared to locked shelves and long lines.
Cry me a river.
In cut throat retail innovate or die.
I hate everything being locked up. I am sick of being treated like a criminal when I’m just going to the fucking store.
I’m on camera at the self checkout. There’s staff breathing down my neck as I’m scanning shit. I get followed by Target staff especially when looking at clothes, as though they haven’t put alarm things on literally every single item, even if it’s 5.99. I get my receipt checked at walmart before I can leave. At Burlington they took my cart before I left the store because they said it would lock up if it got to the parking lot. Good thing I didn’t buy anything heavy?
I hate amazon, but at least I don’t have to deal with all that shit. And it’s not like I can escape giving my money to giant, evil corporations anyway. It’s not like I can afford to shop at small businesses. But that’s exactly why they do it. They know they can’t drive people away from shopping at these stores, because we have nowhere else to shop. “Capitalism fosters competition” my ass.
I commiserate with you on all of this, but I just wanted to let you know that as a small form of protest, you can say no to them checking your receipt on the way out the door. Be polite and civil, of course. But they can’t legally stop you from walking out with your purchases.
Weird for me it’s definitely cheaper.
Translation: they’re buying their shit elsewhere because Target sucks and is overpriced
So they had their CEO come on and complain that the reason “line go down” is “people no buy” so investors won’t think it’s management’s fault?
Don’t they do this every year? “Oh, no, we’re going to do soooooo badly this holiday season!!1!1!” Only to have record profits, yet again. Set market expectations low then ✨✨dazzle✨✨ them. 🙄 Meanwhile we’re all paying more for lower quality plastic.
