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Target CEO Brian Cornell, who helped reenergize the company but has struggled to turn around weak sales in a more competitive retail landscape since the COVID pandemic, plans to step down Feb. 1.Minneapolis-based Target Corp. said Wednesday that Chief Operating Officer Michael Fiddelke, a 20-year company veteran, will succeed Cornell. Cornell will transition to be executive chair of the board.Cornell, 66, took the helm at Target in August 2014. In September 2022, the board extended his contract for three more years and eliminated a policy requiring its chief executives to retire at age 65.Cornell said the appointment followed several years of board vetting of both internal and external candidates. Fiddelke has overhauled Target’s supply network and expanded the company’s stores and digital services while cutting costs.“Mike was the right candidate to lead our business back to growth,” Cornell told reporters. “As I arrived at Target, I consistently relied on Michael’s strategic insights and sound judgment when making decisions. Michael has developed a deeper knowledge of our business than anyone I know.”Fiddelke told reporters he’s stepping into the role with “urgency” to reclaim the company’s merchandising authority.“When we’re leading with swagger in our merchandising authority, when we have swagger in our marketing, and we’re setting the trend for retail, those are some of the moments I think that Target has been at its highest in my 20 years,” he said.In May, Target announced that Fiddelke would lead a new office focused on faster decision-making to help accelerate sales growth.The change in leadership was announced Wednesday at the same time that Target reported another quarter of sluggish results. The company’s stock was down more than 8% in pre-market trading.Target reported a 21% drop in net income in the quarter ended Aug. 2. Sales were down slightly and the company reported a 1.9% dip in comparable sales those from established physical stores and online channels. Target has seen flat or declining comparable sales in eight out of the past 10 quarters including the latest period.Target, which has about 1,980 U.S. stores, has been the focus of consumer boycotts since late January, when it joined rival Walmart and a number of other prominent American brands in scaling back corporate diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.Target’s sales also have languished as customers defect to Walmart and off-price department store chains like TJ Maxx in search of lower prices. But many analysts think Target is stumbling because consumers no longer consider it the place to go for affordable but stylish products, a niche that long ago earned the retailer the jokingly posh nickname “Tarzhay.”In fact, out of 35 merchandise categories that Target tracks, it gained or maintaining market share in only 14 during the latest quarter, Fiddelke told reporters Tuesday.Meanwhile, Walmart gained market share among households with incomes over $100,000 as U.S. inflation caused consumer prices to rise rapidly. Lower-income shoppers have driven customer growth at Target, suggesting it may have lost appeal with wealthier customers, according to market research firm Consumer Edge.“It’s probably not the best sign, especially because higher-income consumers continue to hold up a little bit better” during times of economic uncertainty, said Consumer Edge Head of Insights Michael Gunther.In March, members of Target’s executive team told investors they planned to regain the chain’s reputation for selling stylish goods at budget prices by expanding Target’s lineup of store label brands and shortening the time it took to get new items from the idea stage to store shelves. The moves would help the company stay close to trends, executives said.“In a world where we operate today, our guests are looking for Tarzhay,” Cornell told investors. “Consumers coined that term decades ago to define how we elevate the everything everyday to something special, how we had unexpected fun in the shopping that would be otherwise routine.”Before joining Target, Cornell spent more than 30 years in leadership positions at retail and consumer-product companies, including as chief marketing officer at Safeway Inc. and CEO at Michaels, Walmart’s Sam’s Club and PepsiCo America Foods. He came to Target when the company was facing a different set of challenges.Cornell replaced former CEO Gregg Steinhafel, who stepped down nearly five months after Target disclosed a huge data breach in which hackers stole millions of customers’ credit- and debit-card records. The theft badly damaged the chain’s reputation and profits.Cornell reenergized sales by having his team rev up Target’s store brands. It now has 40 private label brands in its portfolio. And even before the pandemic, Cornell spearheaded the company’s mission to transform its stores into delivery hubs to cut down on costs and speed up deliveries.Target’s 2017 acquisition of Shipt helped bolster the discounter’s same-day, store-based fulfillment services. Cornell also focused on making its stores better tailored to the local community.The coronavirus pandemic delivered outsized sales for Target as well as its peers as people stayed home and bought pajamas, furnishings and kitchen items. And it continued to see a surge in sales as shoppers emerged from their homes and went to stores. But the spending sprees eventually subsided.As inflation started to spike, Target reported a 52% drop in profits during its 2022 first quarter compared with a year earlier. Purchases of big TVs and appliances that Americans loaded up on during the pandemic faded, leaving the retailer with excess inventory that had to be sold off.In July 2023, as shoppers feeling pinched by inflation curtailed their spending, Target said its comparable sales declined for the first time in six years.Moreover, Target started losing its edge as an authority on style by focusing too much on home furnishings basics, and not enough trendy items, Fiddelke said.A customer backlash over the annual line of LGBTQ+ Pride merchandise Target stores carried that year further cut into sales.Although Walmart retreated from its diversity initiatives first, Target has been the focus of more concerted consumer boycotts. Organizers have said they viewed Target’s action as a greater betrayal because the company previously had held itself out as a champion of inclusion. Anne D’Innocenzio, AP Business Writer
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E-Commerce
Shares in Target Corporation (NYSE: TGT) are sinking this morning after the company made a few significant announcements. First, the retailer released its Q2 2025 results, which revealed it is still facing substantial sales headwinds. Next, the company said it will soon have a new CEOits first chief executive change in over a decade. And Wall Street isnt reacting favorably to either bit of news, based on how TGT shares are reacting in pre-market trading as of the time of this writing. The stock price is currently down nearly 10% to just above $95 per share. Heres what you need to know. Targets disappointing Q2 2025 Today, Target announced its second quarter 2025 results before markets opened. Those results came in slightly ahead of the already low investor expectations, but they were also still down from the same period a year earlier. For its Q2 2025, Target reported the following: Earnings per share (EPS): $2.05 Revenue: $25.21 billion As CNBC notes, those figures actually came in slightly above LSEG analyst expectations, which were an expected EPS of $2.03 and expected revenue of $24.93 billion. Yet those small beats werent enough to discourage investors from dumping the stock. Target reported several other metrics that show the company is still struggling. The company revealed that its net sales were down 0.9% for the quarter, with comparable sales decreasing by 1.9%. Its net income for the quarter was $935 million, which was down significantly from the $1.19 billion in net income in the same quarter a year earlier. Likewise, its revenue of $25.21 billion for the quarter was also down from a year earlier, when net revenue totaled $25.45. The company also maintained its current full fiscal 2025 forecast of an adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of between $7.00 and $9.00. This forecast expects the company to see a low-single digit decline in sales. The company previously cut back its initial full-year forecast back in May. Meet Targets new CEO, Michael Fiddelke In addition to announcing its Q2 2025 results, Target also revealed that it would be getting a new CEO. The company announced that its current CEO, Brian Cornell, will be stepping down from the role in February 2026. On February 1, its new CEO, Michael Fiddelke, will take the reins. Cornell has been Targets CEO since 2014. Incoming CEO Michael Fiddelke [Photo: Target] Fiddelke himself is no stranger to Target. Hes been with the company for two decades, first starting at the retailer as an intern. Fiddelke rose through Targets ranks through the years, and currently serves as the companys chief operating officer (COO). He was also previously the companys chief financial officer (CFO). Announcing the CEO transition, Targets lead independent director of the companys Board of Directors, Christine Leahy, said that Fiddelke is the right leader to return Target to growth, refocus and accelerate the company’s strategy, and reestablish Target’s position as a leader in the highly dynamic and fast-moving retail environment. Michael’s tenure gives him unmatched enterprise insight and a base of strong team trust. But what sets him apart is how he combines those strengths with a ‘fresh eyes’ mindset, challenging the status quo to evolve how the business operates, differentiates and delivers long-term value.” After Fiddelke assumes the CEO position, Cornell will stay on at the company in the role of the executive chair of the Board of Directors. TGT stock is having a rough ride Target has been struggling for quite a while with declining sales. It is facing problems many other retailers are, including inflationary pressures; cash-strapped consumers who are cutting back on discretionary spending, which includes the majority of the goods Target sells; and increased competition from online retailers like Amazon and brick-and-mortar competitors like Walmart. In 2025, the company is also facing increased costs thanks to President Donald Trumps tariffs, which are raising the price Target must pay for the goods it imports into the country. Target must either absorb those rising costs, leading to a worsening bottom line, or pass them on to consumers, who may further cut back their spending due to those price hikes. After todays announcements, TGT shares are currently down nearly 10% to just above $95 apiece. And unfortunately for investors, the companys shares are just sliding this morning. TGT shares have fallen steadily over the past year. Since the beginning of 2025, TGT shares were down over 22% year-to-date, as of yesterdays close. And over the past 12 months, TGT shares have fallen more than 27% as of yesterdays close.
Category:
E-Commerce
Internet users are increasingly turning to AI tools like ChatGPT, rather than traditional search engines, as they look for information online, meaning businesses trying to reach them need to adaptquickly. “There’s this pattern that plays out on the internet, where a new sort of technology emerges that changes how consumers interact with information online,” says Alex Sherman, CEO and cofounder of startup Bluefish. Brands and marketers are always initially not quite sure how to place that and how to use it, but as consumer adoption scales, it becomes really clear that this is where the eyeballs are going.” With even search engines like Google supplementing raw search results with AI-powered summaries, showing upand receiving favorable mentionsin AI discussions is becoming as important to brands as appearing in search results or on social media. Today, that technology is generative AI. A recent Adobe survey found that more than half of U.S. consumers intend to use it for online shopping this year. Bluefish helps marketers track, measure, and optimize how their brands appear in AI discussionssimilar to how SEO experts have long worked to influence Google results. Bluefish, which works with companies like Adidas, real estate firm Tishman Speyer, and advertising giant Omnicom, sends massive numbers of queries to AI systems such as ChatGPT and Googles Gemini every day to determine what those systems are saying about its customers brands. The company then reports on brand visibility in AI results, the sentiment of those mentions, and how influential corporate content is in shaping what models have to say versus third-party discussions. Alex Sherman [Photo: Buefish] “Our technology analyzes millions of AI prompt responses every day to give marketers a really clear picture of how they’re being portrayed to consumers by those large language models, and then enable them to take action and start to actually optimize the way those models are describing their products and their services to those consumers,” Sherman says. That optimization often means adding content to corporate websites designed specifically for large-language modelssometimes in volumes far greater than what human visitors would typically consume. Useful additions include FAQs tailored to match the kinds of queries AI users might pose, Sherman explains. Because reaching the right audience is key, Bluefish recently launched a feature called Custom AI Audiences that lets customers track their performance by audience segment. For example, a bank could see how AI portrays its brand to financial advisers, retail investors, or college students. Behind the scenes, this requires sending targeted queries to AI systems crafted to elicit responses as if they were coming from those user groups. “We have a very expensive bill from the AI providers every month,” Sherman says. Bluefishwhich just announced a $20 million Series A led by NEA with participation from Salesforce Venturesfocuses primarily on large enterprises, with pricing and plans built to match their scale. Roughly 80% of its customers are Fortune 500 companies across industries such as financial services, consumer goods, and travel. Other firms in the space, sometimes calling their work generative-engine optimization (GEO), focus on different market segments. Since AI tools generate responses based on content across the internet, techniques for optimization can include AI-specific website adjustments, but also long-standing strategies like building social media presence, sparking positive forum discussions, and securing press coverage. Though the field is still young and AI tools continue to evolve, Sherman expects this area to claim a growing share of marketing budgets as consumers spend more time with AI. “It is sort of the channel that’s eating all of the other channels,” he says. “Ultimately, we basically see most online marketing as turning into AI marketing over the next few years.”
Category:
E-Commerce
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