Visual Merchandising and Store Design | VMSD.com

The mass merchant embarks on a big renovation program, including improving and expanding its grocery offerings, to become a one-stop shopping destination.

By Steve Kaufman

With the economy in a doldrums and much of the store-build industry sitting on its hands, Target Corp. (Minneapolis) began the year with a remarkable announcement: It would be spending $1 billion to renovate much of its general merchandise chain, beginning this year. The mass merchant, always known for attention to the shopping experience, says it will be brightening its stores with better lighting, widening the aisles and changing some of its product mix.

The biggest change? With an initiative that it’s internally calling “PFresh,” Target is rolling out its fresh food effort, which began being tested in Philadelphia in 2009, with expanded grocery sections for a whole new offering of things like vegetables, fruit, baked goods and packaged deli meats.

This spring, Target chairman, president and ceo Gregg Steinhafel reassured securities analysts that the company is on track to remodel more than 340 stores this year. “By the end of the third quarter, we expect to have more than 450 general merchandise locations with the expanded assortment and presentation,” he says. Ten new stores will open this year.

Why more food? “Because that’s what the guest has told us she wants,” says Rich Varda, senior vp of store design (using that unvarying term for “shopper” that is part of the Target vocabulary).

“We’ve accumulated some 4 million guest responses to online surveys,” says John Griffith, executive vp, property development. “She wants a bigger, more-inviting grocery presentation, so her Target store can be an all-encompassing, one-stop shopping trip for her.”

The new store layout has been designed to meet that, and other, shopper needs. In the new traffic pattern, as the guest reaches the first aisle intersection, grocery is prominently visible at the end of the row to her right. Overhead signage leads her there, where the retailer has increased the square footage and also the presentation, using brightly lit open shelves and well-lit freezer cases.

“Our expanded grocery layout includes items such as basic pre-packaged fresh produce, like bags of bananas, seasonal fruit, lettuce; some fresh packaged meat; and pre-packaged baked goods,” Varda says. “This is the first time we’ve offered fresh or perishable food in our general merchandise stores.”