Target starts campaign in East - Target Stores Inc. opens two stores in Virginia

Discount Store News, April 1, 1996

NATIONWIDE DSN REPORT - "Unleashed in the East." That's what Target is claiming in store signage now that it has opened its first two Eastern stores in what it regards as the Washington, D.C., metro market on the Virginia side.

The two are the vanguards of 24 stores Target will open in metro Washington and Baltimore in '96, to be followed by probaly as many more in '97.

The '97 openings will include Target's first East Coast SuperTarget, a 176,600-sq.-ft. store in Newport News, Va.

The two Virginia openings include the first Greatland store on the East Coast, a 126,000-sq.-ft. unit behind the Potomac Mills mall, a 1.7 million-sq.-ft. off-price and outlet store mall south of Washington in Woodbridge, Va. The other was a standard Target prototype store for an urban market, 115,000 sq. ft., in Fredericksburg. Both are just off I-95, the main route between Florida and Maine, which runs through Philadelphia. New York and Boston.

They Were part of the 21-store round of March 10 openings, including a second SuperTarget in Omaha, Neb., of approximately 180,000 sq. ft. The other stores were scattered around the country from Bend, Ore., to Kendall, Fla., outside Miami. Most were 115,000 sq. ft., but one was the 89,000-sq.-ft., scaled-down version for smaller markets. The openings also included the relocation of one of the l3 aging Atlanta stores acquired from Richway in 1988, and relocations in Louisville, Ky., and San Antonio, Texas.

Grand opening visits to the two Virginia stores and the SuperTarget in Omaha produced few merchandising surprises, and the openings appeared to have gone well, with the exception of a few of the usual minor glitches.

In the packed Fredricksburg store, a computer failure temporarily put a stop to granting instant credit to those applying for a Target private label credit card, or "Guest Card,, as it is called. Target was making a major push for its private label card, offering customers, or "guests," a gift of a ballpoint pen, address book or Yogi Jr. plush toy for filling out a credit application. Header signs on apparel rounders also touted the private label card: "lt's What You Want When You Need It."

The company's co-branded Target/Visa card still remains in a test mode in Indianapolis and the Orlando and Jacksonville, Fla., markets, and so was unavailable in Virginia.

The main surprise was that cars were backed up trying to get into the Fredricksburg store parking lot, while the Greatland store had plenty of vacant parking spaces at the same time on a Sunday grand opening morning. Greatland store traffic seemed sparse in comparison to the crowds jamming Fredricksburg.

But that impression could simply be a function of the larger square footage in the Greatland store and a larger number of parking spaces. Target is opening Greatlands only in a few selected markets where it apparently expects demographics will improve on disappointing sales per square foot from the extra space.

With two entrances, color-coded blue and green, the Greatland store positions apparel and jewelry in the center for greater emphasis. A dropped ceiling over apparel departments visually focuses on them. Hard lines departments range along perimeter walls.

In contrast, the Fredricksburg store sticks to the standard Target floor plan of apparel on one side, hard lines on the other. The new SuperTarget, third of the Target concepts, basically is a Greatland layout with a supermarket tacked alongside. However, it moves supermarket-type general merchandise to the transition area between food and general al merchandise. That includes candy and snacks, pharmacy, health a beauty aids, cosmetics, housewares and home storage, small electric and cleaning supplies.

The Fredricksburg store also picks up the color coding of departments introduced in Greatland, and even includes in its brick facade the red, blue and green stripes of a Greatland (minus yellow).

Target refrains from clogging power aisles and the racetrack with palletized displays, promoting a clean, uncluttered look. To further reduce aisle clutter, Target limits rest benches to the front of the store by the restrooms.

In a minor exception, the stores featured in their racetracks small gondolas on wheels, promoting Pocahontas and USA Olympics-licensed products and snacks.

Both stores feature Food Avenue snack bars, with seating for 75 at the Greatland and about @O at Fredricksburg. They offer senior citizens a free soft drink or coffee with any purchase.

In a nod toward safety, the Greatland store places gray storage tubes in various areas where slippery spills could be expected, such as near the restrooms, cleaning supplies and house plants, which has a built-in plant watering hose. The tubes contain a pop-open yellow plastic sign warning of spills.

And in a move to remind would-be shoplifters that someone is watching them, closed-circuit TV cameras at each entrance flash customers, images on overhead color monitors as they enter. Target now protects all of its stores with Checkpoint monitors at exits, and sticks Checkpoint anti-theft EAS tags on frequently stolen items. To secure cigarettes, a high theft item, Fredricksburg keeps cigarettes under lock and key at checkout register No. l. Cigarette buyers at the other checkouts, which number 16, must wait while their cashier fetches their choices from the glass case at No. l.