I've always loved this era of Target for the fun and playful aesthetic they used in their stores, both inside and out -- ball-shaped bollards, walls with cutouts, funky angles, and plenty of neon. P97 and P01 sort of had a similar thing going on on their interiors (especially
P97!), but the P04/P09 era was when Target brought that same sense of fun to the outdoors. And it looks like that family in the background is enjoying it all! These days, Target is all grown up -- in other words, boring and
overly serious. And the same thing is true of pretty much every chain these days -- just compare Safeway Modern to Grocery Palace, or Artisan to Kroger Spirit. (Oh look, I'm in a doom and gloom mood again, yay.)
I'm okay with a certain level of boringness at Target as, after all, the stores were a bit boring in the 1980s at least relative to that P97 photo from Retail Retell! The grey and otherwise dull interior we saw here is a bit too boring, but I'd take what Target had in the 1980s. Of course, Target had then, and had until recently, really good store upkeep, good staffing, and generally good customer service at least as far as a discount store goes. Unfortunately, almost all these things have been slipping lately. Combine that with a boring store and other annoyances (the all lowercase Target name, for example), and it looks like Target might be headed quite far off-target here lately. You should see how bad Targets look where they've pulled up floors and left concrete scar behind! Hopefully Target can turn things around in order to avoid a 1980s/early 1990s Kmart-like malaise which they never recovered from and which led to two bankruptcies.
ReplyDeleteI'm too young to remember that era, but it seems like Target has really gone downhill over just the past few years. I'd add pricing to that list of grievances -- there were a few years (2020-2022ish) when Target had very competitive pricing, at least around here, but they've lost that edge over the past year or so and are back to being in the same price range as Safeway or QFC/Fred Meyer, which is frustrating. At least their staffing is better than Safeway!
DeleteThanks for the link!
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