From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Target Corporation article. This is not a forum for general discussion about the article's subject.
Please sign and date your posts by typing four tildes (~~~~). Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic. New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Ask questions, get answers.	Be polite Assume good faith No personal attacks Be welcoming	Article policies No original research Neutral point of view Verifiability

	To-do list for Target Corporation:	edit  · history  · watch  · refresh
Here are some tasks you can do: Expand: Transition period, Major sponsorships, Lead paragraph (draft), Technology Services (subsidiary) Stubs: Archer Farms, Bullseye (Bull Terrier), ClearRx Update: Corporate fact card URL and store count from [1]

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Minnesota, which aims to improve all articles related to Minnesota.
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the assessment scale. [FAQ]
???	This article has not yet received an importance rating within Minnesota articles.
This article has not been rated for quality and/or importance yet. Please rate the article and then leave comments here to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article.

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Retailing, which aims to improve all articles related to retailing.
Retailing To-do: | edit — SEC(TGT)  Here are some tasks you can do: Requests: WikiProject Retailing userbox Copyedit: Target Corporation, Wal-Mart - to be used as an examples for ideal page structure Cleanup: Listings of store locations Expand: Store manager, List of articles on project page, image gallery on project page, Hypermarket (history section), Category killer - This is very US/Canada centric - Ikea exists elsewhere, too. Stubs: Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market, Archer Farms, ClearRx Other: Department store - discriminate between itself and Discount store. Category killer - If a Category Killer dominates its area, why are there many stores listed per category? There should be clear criteria for when a store is included, otherwise this just becomes an advertising page.

edit

Archives

2005 2006

This article is a former featured article candidate. Please view its sub-page to see why the nomination failed. For older candidates, please check the archive.

Contents 1 Refactored discussions 1.1 Expansion 1.1.1 Transition period 1.1.2 Expansion as per FACfailed 1.1.3 List of multi level Target stores 1.1.4 Target vending machine 1.2 Issues 1.2.1 Upscale discount retailing 1.2.2 E*TRADE ATMs 2 Current discussions 2.1 Trivia 2.2 e-Commerce 2.3 References cleanup done 2.4 Archiving 2006 2.5 Smarts 2.6 Target Technology Services (TTS) / India (TTSI) 2.7 The Fate of Target Australia-- Delete? 2.8 Major history expansion 2.9 Talk:Christmas controversies/Merge proposal

[edit] Refactored discussions

This section has been refactored from several different sections that have been archived, and presents the perspective of one Wikipedia contributor. The summaries here might not reflect everything that was discussed previously, and none of it should be viewed as absolute truth or the opinions of those involved in these discussions. Tuxide 06:49, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Expansion

[edit] Transition period

User Suso suggested that this article's History section should be expanded to include Target's major transition period towards the end of the 1990s. User Tuxide has identified three major transition periods that the Target chain has experienced:

• In 1968, Target expanded its chain into St. Louis, while the chain's cofounder and upscaling discount retailing pioneer John Geisse quit his job to work for May.[2]

  Done. Tuxide 07:30, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

• From 1972 to 1975, Target had a problem with overstocking surpluses and disregarding inventory costs (see previous source).

  Done. Tuxide 07:30, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

• Towards the end of the 1990s, Target expanded into the northeastern United States and became the nation's second national discount retailer, after Kmart. To attract the elite residents of the Northeast, it embarked on an extreme advertising campaign and rolled out the Michael Graves Collection.[3]

[edit] Expansion as per FACfailed

As per Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Target Corporation, the following sections need expansion:

• Target Australia, needs to include a paragraph about the talks about Target buying out Zellers in Canada and then the section needs to be renamed appropriately to reflect some international thing, could also include more similarities between Target stores in the US and these other places (like Zellers sells Cherokee brand clothing)

  The section Target Australia has been refactored and merged into the main Target Stores subsection. Tuxide 02:48, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

• Major sponsorships, needs to include something about their Breast cancer merchandise, and after that can say the race car turns pink during the month of October
• The lead paragraph, needs to be expanded to two or three paragraphs to synopsize the article after the other three sections have been expanded.

[edit] List of multi level Target stores

User J.reed suggested an article featuring a list of multi-level Target stores to keep users from adding non-notable stores to the this article's Urban stores section. User Tuxide points out that Wikipedia:Notability (companies and corporations)#Chains and franchises states that a "List of Wal-Marts in China" would be informative.

[edit] Target vending machine

User Tuxide found an article on a Target vending machine[4][5] and would like to find a way to add this to the History section. The History section also details failed concepts, such as the specialty store Everyday Hero.

[edit] Issues

[edit] Upscale discount retailing

User Tuxide wants to know if the term "upscale discount retailing" is Target POV. Upscale discount retailing is a concept invented by Target's cofounder John Geisse, and is defined as selling high quality goods for low prices by cutting expenses. Traditional discount retailing is defined as achieving low prices on goods by manufacturing cheap products.

[edit] E*TRADE ATMs

User HumanZoom has requested verification on the current ownership of Target's ATM machines without using original research. What is needed is to tell which bank—E*TRADE or any other—owns them, and a source, such as an article, to cite from.

[edit] Current discussions

[edit] Trivia

Currently: "Also one of the many criticisms of the store is prominently shown—locking flow employees and janitors overnight in the store. "

"Flow employee"? What's that? Bizspeak? It isn't a phrase in common use, and not in the dictionary. I suggest that it either be parenthetically defined, linked to a definition, or reworded so it's intelligible to ordinary mortals. Jedwards05 02:51, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Or just plain have it removed. I don't see how trivia is encyclopedic anyways. Tuxide 03:36, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

If there are no objections in the next ten days, then I will remove this article's trivia section, as per WP:TRIV. There is a difference between "interesting" and "importance". I am labelling the section as {{toomuchtrivia}} in the meantime. Tuxide 02:48, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Get rid of the last two, integrate the first one into the article. The second one isn't even grammatically correct. J.reed 04:29, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Ten days have passed. I have blown off the trivia section and moved the one with the bullseye painted on the roof to the Differentiation section in the paragraph that I thought was most appropriate. I also provided a link to the movie in the See also section. Regards, Tuxide 02:26, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] e-Commerce

I thought "target.direct" was changed to "Target.com" after the sale of Marshall Field's and Mervyns in 2004. target.direct was the group that oversaw all those e-commerce operations. It was labeled "Great stores. One site. One checkout." A search of Google found nothing since 2002 that referred to target.direct. But here's a 2003 webpage from Target.com that still is up and running.[6] Notice how all the retail divisions are under target.direct? I also noticed in the 2005 Annual Report that heads are listed for Target Sourcing Services, Financial Services, and Target.com, but no "target.direct". Changes are forthcoming in the sections labeled "Target Corporation" and "Subsidiaries." I've already changed the template. Clipper471 03:50, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Is there any news article stating such a name change? I haven't heard the term "target.direct" for a year or two; however I don't really want to add a sentence on such a name change unless I can cite it myself. I have heard of the subsidiary called "Target.com" though on recent SEC reports. Tuxide 04:23, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't know of any news articles or official announcements, but the name "target.direct" is no longer used within Target Headquarters. It is now known as "Target.com" in all official company communications.Bb referee 04:14, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] References cleanup done

I overhauled the references in the article by citing the names, sources and dates. Previously, the references simply stated "Article on..." Clipper471 07:29, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, much of that was my doing, without prejudice against fixing it later. You really have improved the quality of the article recently. It would also be helpful if you use edit summaries as well, just so nobody thinks you're MascotGuy. Tuxide 07:51, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Archiving 2006

Sometime next week, I am going to archive the 2006 discussions on this talk page. I might keep around some of the "active" discussions in its original form (if any), however I am probably going to refactor the unresolved ones in the same fashion as what was done towards the beginning of this year. Way to go everyone, this article has expanded and improved much since its last AfD nom. Regards, Tuxide 07:51, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Smarts

In 1995, Target operated a "Smarts" store in a former Target on the Northwest side of Indianapolis. It served as a second sale point for clearanced Target info from all over the Midwest. Does anyone remember any other locations? I don't know how long the store was in operation, but it was long gone by 2000. Lambertman 22:24, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I have confirmed that this store did exist from Daily News Record, although I know nothing about it and I can't read the full article. It is not clear if it existed as a chain, but the article was written in April 1993 and suggests the location of this one is Chicago. It sounds like another Everyday Hero to me, so with a better source it could be included. Tuxide 22:46, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Another article referring to the Indianapolis one, dated July 1993. Again, I can't read the whole thing. Tuxide 22:48, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

A freely readable article from Discount Store News, finally. Dated May 3, 1993 and probably the best source so far. Tuxide 22:53, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Now that we know that it opened in 1993, and intended to be a chain of stores with one unit per distribution center, we should probably figure out what year it closed, and how many of these existed. There were seven distribution centers during the time, but we can only confirm the Smarts closeout store in Indianapolis. Tuxide 23:09, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Target Technology Services (TTS) / India (TTSI)

I noticed someone made an edit to the subsidiaries section concerning Technology Services. Target Corporation indeed does have such a subsidiary, with offices in both the Minneapolis headquarters building and in India, and it should be included as per comment #2 on Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Target Corporation. What I do not know is if it is one subsidiary or two of them, and what they call themselves nowadays. It is not the same as Target.com. Technology Services provides support for the corporation's customer relationship management and supply chain management systems, etc. Tuxide 02:37, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The Fate of Target Australia-- Delete?

I see no reason why Target Australia should be included in this article, since it has its own article and it has not relationships with the subject of this article except a trademark licence. I think a {{otheruses4|retailer in the United States|retailer in Australia|Target (Australia)}} suffice. --Samuel Curtis^{Shinichian-Hirokian}-- _{TALK·CONTRIBS} 12:58, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

What's important relevant to the subject of the article is that Target Corporation has never operated stores outside of the United States. The information can probably be normalized and inserted into the Target Corporation#Target Stores section, because I don't see why Target (Australia) should have its own section on here. Also, I brought up the inclusion of the Zellers acquisition rumor on #Expansion as per FACfailed. Although it was merely a rumor, it was considered notable during the time. Tuxide 02:51, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Major history expansion

I have given a major expansion to the pre-1990 part of Target Corporation to better reflect the content that I believe should be in there (like expansion to different regions of the United States and major transition periods). If anything, I would suggest moving the content of the top executives out of History and into its own section for further expansion. Also the post-1990 stuff needs to be expanded, else it looks stupid. Tuxide 07:28, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Talk:Christmas controversies/Merge proposal

The current poll regarding an issue related to this article is now closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as a new section of the article's talk page). Last issue: Talk:Christmas controversies/Merge proposal

Tuxide 21:19, 1 April 2007 (UTC)