Target: Why You No Discounts?

By now you know that Target is closing all 133 of its Canadian outlets thus laying off around 18,000 employees.  The reason for this is because it would take another six years or till the year 2021 for Target to become profitable in Canada.  Now they are supposed to be in their liquidation phase.  Liquidating assets essentially means to sell off all your inventory at a reduced price.  But you'd think that Target Canada would be doing that, right?  Right?  Wrong!

Target has signs in their stores advertising 30 percent off.  Sure that's not a lot.  But with that being expected when Target stores across Canada opened their doors on the first day of liquidation, you'd think that 30 percent would be as shown in the signs.  You'd think...  A complaint people had about their liquidation sale is that stuff was at 10 percent off or even higher than normal price.  Target wonders why they can't turn a profit.  This might be a big reason.  I'm no expert or nothing, but usually you don't jack up your prices during liquidation.

Various news reports have stated a reoccurring theme of no deals.  I like this line from the Ottawa Sun "Target at least kept it consistent: Disappointing Canadian shoppers right to the end."  Target has.  They've had better deals throughout the year which is laughable if you think about it.  Do they not know how to liquidate?  Do they notm know the idea behind liquidating?    If the idea is to rid your stores of merchandise, than you'd sell it at substantially lower price.  Target couldn't even get that right.

If you've ever been to a Target in Canada, you'd know that their stores hardly had any customers, bare/empty shelves, and prices that were higher than their competitors like Walmart.  The big complaint was their prices.  Even during liquidation, they can't get it right.  What Target doesn't tell you is that the price ends up being up more.  According to a CTV Winnipeg news report, that is the case.  They say it's no longer Target's policy, but it's the liquidator's.  Who is the liquidator?  A search on Google yields no information on that.  For the consumer, it would be good to know so they knew where to direct their complaints seeing as Target is trying to avoid all responsibility in this regard.

Target should have thought of a better way to expand into Canada.  A Yahoo Canada video explains five reasons why they failed in Canada.



These five reasons to seem to be right on.  If Target wants to attempt to be in Canada again, which I doubt will happen, than they better think it out or they'll fail even faster.  Good try Target.  Good try.  Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.  Plus it is no wonder Bob Ulrich got canned as Target CEO.  Their venture into Canada under Ulrich was a disaster and you have him to thank.