Target: Aiming at apparel - Cover Story - Special Supplement Discount Store News: AM

Discount Store News, Dec 9, 1991

Value. That's been the buzzword of the apparel business for several years. Yet the term doesn't necessarily denote a single merchandising strategy. Dayton Hudson Corporation's Target division has a unique approach to giving its customers the biggest bang for their bucks.

At a time when many discounters and department stores are turning to the security and marketing appeal of national brands, Target continues to emphasize its private labels. But this strategy isn't designed solely to produce belowbrand prices. In fact, Target's own Merona and Sostanza labels represent some of the store's highest apparel price points.

The thinking behind this game plan isn't hard to understand. Target's executives reason that if buyers work with the company's trend merchandisers and quality assurance personnel to develop and produce fashionable, well-made garments that can be priced below comparable items sold at department stores or specialty operations like The Gap and The Limited, customers will beat a path to the door.

This basic approach is backed up by a heavy sprinkling of brands, but unlike most of its competitors, the store is generally unwilling to install vendor "shops" within its doors.

Target's strategies of intensive product development, value pricing, niche marketing and carrying brands in areas where they count was evident when it opened 22 new stores on a single day in October.

The company's apparel formula has thus far been successful, but a question looms. Now that Warren Feldberg, the Harvard MBA and Bloomingdale's alumnus, who most recently served as Target's president and senior apparel merchandising strategist, has jumped ship to join Marshalls as ceo, will the equation still add up?