Dive Brief:
- Adding to its long-term expansion plan, Target is opening seven new stores this fall across Arizona, California, Florida, Nebraska, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia, per a company post Wednesday.
- Six of those seven locations will be large-format stores, topping the retailer’s 125,000-square-foot chain average.
- The locations will open between Oct. 12 and Oct. 19. The openings include Target’s second new store this year in Texas (which now has 159 brick-and-mortar stores), as well as the retailer’s third new opening in Florida in 2025.
Dive Insight:
Target’s expanded footprint this fall comes amid larger changes at the company, which includes a focus on retail fundamentals.
Following struggling sales and consumer backlash, the mass retailer announced in August that longtime CEO Brian Cornell would exit the role effective Feb. 1. The retailer’s COO Michael Fiddelke will take on the chief position at that time, while Cornell transitions to serve as executive chair of Target’s board of directors.
The company’s second quarter results last month showed net sales declined 0.9% year over year to $25.2 billion and store comps dropped 3.2%.
Target’s upcoming fall store openings add to the eight new locations it announced in the summer. Those stores spanned California, Connecticut, Florida, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania, with three of the spaces topping its chainwide size average.
All the new openings are contributing to the retailer’s plan to open 300 over the next decade. Target debuted 23 new stores last year and announced a strategic plan to exceed $15 billion in sales growth by 2030.