Target Revamps Stores For Customers Looking For Convenience And To Stay Awhile

Every year, retailers test concepts in their stores in order to meet consumers’ changing shopping habits: from using scan n’ go, no check out lines, or toying with the idea of no shopping carts. Target’s latest version of this revamp will focus on catering to customers who are in a rush and those who want to just get away for a bit. 

Target announced Tuesday its plan to redesign its next generation of stores. The concept — which will debut at a Houston store this fall — is aimed at helping customers traverse the giant store more easily, while also encouraging them to, you know, spend money.

CEO Brian Cornell first revealed the concept at a digital commerce conference in Las Vegas, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports.

While the stores will look like a traditional Super Target from the outside, with two entrances, the inside will have a distinct look: stenciled floors, unique lighting, and wood-paneled walls and beams.

One entrance will be for customers in a rush, complete with an online order pickup counter close by and grab-and-go food and beverage displays near the exits. This section will also house the stores’ groceries and a new beer and wine section.

Despite shutting down its curbside pickup pilot program last summer, this side of the new Target store will feature dedicated parking spaces where employees can bring online orders out to customers’ cars.

The second entrance will contain merchandise displays meant to grab customers’ attention in the hopes they’ll make purchases. The store will also feature outdoor space for those times when guests are just wandering around the store avoiding their family.

Additionally, the new Target stores will have curved, more circular center aisles that will feature merchandise displays to engage guests with compelling products.

“Expect lots of flexibility, open sight lines and discovery moments throughout the store,” Cornell said at the conference. “We’re going to take what we learn in Houston to help guide us as we customize and remodel hundreds and hundreds of stores over the next three years.”

Target says it expects to begin the remodel process at about 40 stores this fall, with 600 locations remodeled by the end of 2019.

The retailer’s redesign comes just a month after it announced it would step away from innovation and concentrate on its core businesses. This mean dropping its planned store of the future concept in Silicon Valley. That store was expected to rely on robots and other tech-savvy features.

Now, Cornell says the company’s store of the future needs to be a “hyperlocal, shoppable distribution center.”