Target’s CEO is stepping down as customers turn away

Target is going to go out of business.

Good riddance.

Support trump? Enjoy your slump!

Go Fash, lose Cash.

Target fled my country in fear of our mighty geese

Ah yes they did file for bankruptcy like a decade ago.
- You mess with the honk, you get the bonk
I also remember when Target came to, and then left, Canada.

I don't care how many CEO changes you do. I won't shop there until DEI and LGBT products are back.

Turns out go woke, go broke wasn't a thing.

Go Fash, lose cash.
- Get woke or go broke
Where do you shop instead? Like it seems their main competitors are Walmart and Amazon who are both also really bad. I personally have been getting more stuff at Costco as they didn’t roll back DEI and by retail standards treat their employees really well
- Costco yup
- Costco is another one. Home Goods, Marshalls, Kohls works too. Grocery shopping is Aldi, Price Rite, and Wegmans. I'll do Walmart also as last resort. I know they're bad but they are kinda the villain you expect. Target was that good guy that went evil that you know they could be better so the hope is a boycott shocks them back to the light side. I'm lucky enough to live in a medium city so I have a lot of options.
- They're all evil, but Target REALLY leaned into the Pride Month for sales, then made a hard backtrack once fascists were in power.
- The real answer is locally owned grocery stores, which are mostly dead except for some Asian supermarkets.
  Walmart destroyed the idea that a grocery store was owned by someone who lived in your community.
- Bad news about Costco: https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/costco-not-sell-abortion-pill-mifepristone-its-us-pharmacy-stores-aug-14-2025-08-14/
  UPDATE (for additional context): Reportedly, Costco has never carried mifepristone, ever, and according to Costco’s own analysis, there has not been significant demand from Costco members to warrant adding it.
  https://www.seattletimes.com/business/costco-asserts-that-it-wont-sell-abortion-pill-mifepristone/
  For even more context, mifepristone is only ever meant to be administered under the direct supervision of medical staff. That doesn’t mean a doctor prescribed this pill for you to take at home, it means you only get the pill in a doctor’s office, with the doctor and staff there to care for you.
  People I know who have taken mifepristone confirm: it does fuck you up and you DON’T want to take it at home.
- Wish I had a Costco
- I will often still look for things on Amazon, but I try to find reasonable alternatives from Shopify. It’s not perfect, and shipping tends to be slower and more expensive, but I like the idea of not making Bezos more money when I can.
until DEI and LGBT products are back
I don't care what they bring back, I'm never shopping there again. When someone shows you who they really are, believe them the first time.
Go to sleep, futures bleak bro!
LGBT products? Does any non specialty stores sell LGBT products? Or do you mean Pride month?
- Yeah I was talking about their pride collection. They used to be loud and proud about that and then they placated terrorists on the right. This is coming from someone who is not LGBT but has friends in that community.
- I think its worth questioning whether this has anything to do with DEI, or if its actually just that the economy is so bad that people cant afford to shop at Targét for overpriced garbaggio anymore.
  Every time I have ever bought anything at Target it just reminds me why I avoid ever buying anything at Target. Its Walmart for people with more money than sense. Its business model is built to fail in a recession economy.
  Not to mention, like you said, what exactly did they do differently when they had DEI policies. What LGBTQ products ever really existed outside of “Make Money off the Gays Month”
No but the impact of buying because of personal beliefs is definitely a thing in this day and pre-fascist age

Last time I was in a Target they literally had nothing for me to buy. Just aisles of useless merch. Ended up getting a drink because I was thirsty and that was it.

No Xbox games, old PS5/Switch games, horrible book section, no movies to speak of, no decent olive oil... Just a bad scene.

It's like they aren't competing with Walmart or Kroger anymore and are just trying to be a super sized 7-11.

It's worse than TEMU in there. Just a ton of cheap imports at enormous markups.
- I found more to get at a Japanese dollar store that opened recently:
  https://daisous.com/
I mean, these places are just grocery stores at this point. That's all Target is for me.
If I bought games, I would just buy them digitally or order a physical copy if for whatever reason that's what I want.
Books? Free downloads at anna's archive.
Movies? Free streaming sites and 1337.
Olive oil...? Decent? Isn't it all kind of the same thing? Lol. But yeah, that's just a grocery item you can get anywhere else.
They are competing with Walmart and Kroger, as a grocery store. That said, it's not much of a competition because you can buy the same damn groceries at Walmart for cheaper than Target, always.
- Not all olive oil is the same. That's true for a lot of groceries.
  Also some people enjoy owning movies they like or buying them to support them.
  With your "order everything mindset" why but just order groceries too instead of going there?
  Just feels like you took your life and wonder why everyone doesn't live that way lol
- Not sure what you like consuming, but no, olive oil is not all the same. I've produced it several times.

Target is not the target anymore for customers, I’ll see myself out now…

CEO makes stupid and unpopular moves because Trumpism appears to be gaining steam. CEO takes it further once Trump is confirmed in election. CEO finds out that voter apathy is not the same thing as support: most Americans aren't hateful bigots, they just aren't politically active enough to stop the hate mongers. Profits drop. CEO gets golden parachute for fucking up.

Isn't corporate america great?

A simple lesson for business leaders, consistency of brand should be a priority.
When you pivot to try to appeal to a 'new image', those coveted new consumers are not going to be eager to re-evaluate you in their favor anyway. So all you do is piss off the customers that you had successfully courted. As seen in many comments in this thread, it's hard to turn back, the 'new' consumer base still doesn't want you and the 'old' consumer base is pissed.
Target really does not want to try to compete on prices/margin, so they can hardly afford to screw up this way.
In America, you get rewarded for fucking up so badly.
- Only if you're rich
- Shareholders should be demanding his head.

It's wild just how out of touch target's leadership is with their own customer demographics. I'd have to assume the CEO hasn't even stepped foot in one of his own stores to fail as hard as target has.

They bent over for trolls and snowflake conservatives.
And guess what? Theyre not buying shit from Target either.
You done fucked up both sides of the aisle.
Activists and customers on the right attacked Target on social media for its LGBTQ-themed merchandise during Pride Month. Target employees faced threats. Misinformation spread on social media that the swimsuits designed for transgender people were marketed to children, which they were not. The company removed them from stores.
There was a “strong reaction” to Pride merchandise and the response was a “signal for us to pause, adapt and learn,” Target said.
But Target’s response frustrated supporters of gay and transgender rights, who said the company caved to bigoted pressure.
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/08/20/business/timeline-target-ceo

"Cornell will stay on as executive chairman."

In other words, he will run the board that the next CEO answers to. This is failing upwards

he already was (chair & ceo).

Haven't been in a Target in over a year. I used to stop in once a while... but they suck as a company.

I found boycotting Target to be quite easy, since I never shop there because they're overpriced and the specialization of their selection is so incoherent that they're largely useless.
I went in for the first time in years recently, I needed supplies for a new place, they didn't have showerheads or other bathroom staples that anyone might need. A whole ass aisle of shower curtains, but no showerheads or towel racks, things that the walmart across the street has huge selections of.
- We’re in a different boat. We get what we can from local shops and Costco, but some stuff our choices are Walmart or target, and that choice is obvious.

Turns out the citizens are mostly on board with DEI...

But... but... I kept the fat and paraplegic models!

Well that took long enough. This guy has been running Target into the ground for years. Will the next CEO be any better, or just more of the same?

Edit: Nevermind, the idiot is staying on as chairman. Nothing has really changed.

I kind of agree with the general sentiment that maybe they should have selected an outsider. The DEI bullshit wasn't just a "whoopsie" and Target has been declining for years, even if there was a lag in the official numbers.

It's been a long time since I looked at Target and saw a strategy other than "let's wait and see what Walmart's doing and then just do that". Generally speaking, people who shop at Walmart expect (and in some perverse way demand) an ever shittier experience and drop in quality. I just don't foresee a continuation of Target's strategy from the past decade or so being a realistic long term strategy. Walmart, Amazon, and Dollar General will be the way of retail at this pace.

Granted, I'm not Target's target audience. I used to buy a lot of clothes there, then the quality on that dropped while prices shot up, so I just stopped. And I used to use their e-commerce site more often when they didn't have third party sellers, but once they added those, there was no longer any differentiating or compelling reason to go there other than to buy something I could get $2 cheaper at Walmart, $4 cheaper on Amazon, or $8 cheaper on Temu.

Shopping at Target used to be a culture. It was seen as the upscale version of Walmart. Guests bragged about finding things at target and joked about getting lost in it for hours while browsing.
- I never understood this phenomena myself. Even during its prime. The entire b&m model was so outdated to me. I used to prefer shopping online via Amazon.
  Then they enshittified the platform, quality of goods dropped tremendously. Then the stories of poor treatment of warehouse workers and last mile delivery workers was the last straw to me.
  Now my retail shopping consists of preferring local groceries and trying to buy direct from brands that I like. I don’t even care about the free shipping anymore. It’s all a farce these days and it’s just an added cost to items now (even if you don’t return the item).
Outsider won’t do much. Probably bring on the same MBA asshole like the Starbucks CEO that "super commutes"

When in Florida I can buy groceries at Publix, Walmart, Target, or ALDI. I avoid Publix for many reasons but I end up getting most groceries from ALDI and Walmart because Target simply doesn't have shit. Their stores are not small, but the grocery segment are always an embarrassment.

Yes, so strange that a place that is not a grocery store has so few groceries …
- Read the article
Recently I had to choose between Walmart and Target for a couple of needed items. I would have preferred a choice of stores with actual values more closely aligned with my own, but alas, caparilism. I chose Walmart, because it was maybe a few pennies less and a half-mile closer to where I already was.
- Saying no 80% is still change. I struggle with feeling like I am not doing enough to change tides. But you are at least doing something and that’s better than nothing.
- Making an effort is good. I do realize that it is unavoidable to completely boycott a place. But the point is to send a message. If they get $15 from me in 2 months instead of the usual $60 a week I'm doing right.
Target does lean weirdly heavy into clothes and home goods now days. Their target customers must be a strange niche.
- They actually didn't expand into produce until the 2010s. Until then it was just pantry items. I remember the remodel when I worked there.
- What? That's what they've always done. They've been a combo department store and small grocer for decades. Their demographic is middle-class white women too snooty for Walmart but not so wealthy for luxury brands.
- Neil Saunders, an analyst at GlobalData Retail, said in a note to clients Wednesday. “Target, which used to be very attuned to consumer demand, has lost its grip on delivering for the American shopper.”
  They could have a very niche demographic or maybe their just out of touch.

Go woke, suck Trump, go broke.

We need a better tagline. I hate to say it but go woke, go broke rolls off the tongue. Even though it's clearly wrong. Go trump, fall into a slump.
- Just replace the comma with "or". Go woke or go broke.
- Go fash, run out of cash.