I'm surprised that they had such a poor roll out in Canada. I love Target and much prefer it to Walmart. Sounds like you wont' miss it any.

In my younger days I shopped @ Target. I take too long looking at things....like blue jeans for my DH or lamp shades, trying to see how much light it let through......store security started hanging out....like I'm going to put a lamp shade in my tiny little 6"x8" purse?

Then the store security guy shopped where I worked. I sold him a battery for his car. :0) We recognized each other. I said yeah I stopped @ Target on my way home from the college.......he left me alone after that....and I later decided to shop elsewhere. :0)

Creepy to be watched like that...:0)

I haven't been in a Target store in years!!!! Not a store I can't live without....

Our nearest Target is 85 miles away. Only been to it about half a dozen times. Liked the store, liked the few things I purchased. But, not having it when I go to the city is not the be all end all for me.

What I do feel for is the people who will lose their jobs. With oil dropping below $50 a barrel, we are in for a recession in Alberta, and jobs won't be readily available for folks here.

I just looked for and read a news article after seeing this. It was saying something about ongoing distribution problems and maintaining inventory, Canadian consumers disappointed in prices.

I'm seldom in a Target, their nearest is 55 miles from here. The last time I went into one I was looking for a garden item and the garden department had been switched out to holiday things already, seems their stock very seasonal. Not that they are the only merchant to do that ;)

I have appreciated in more recent years that there seems to be a larger number of more budget minded brides and mom's-to-be who use their gift registry. The last two baby showers I've been invited to - all the young women's wants were Target items, from diaper bags and night lights to sleepers. That makes so much more sense to me when some of these things will be used only a few months, and Target gift cards are available just about any place I buy groceries - a pretty card and no wrapping either.

The parking lot seems to always be busy when I've driven by, not sure why the lukewarm reception in Canada, why products wouldn't be competitively priced there as they seem to be here.

I always enjoyed shopping at Target in the U.S. and was excited to hear that they were coming to Canada. One of the specific things I could only find at Target was a specific type of dental floss. However, when they arrived I was disappointed that Canadian Target stores weren't like the U.S. stores and certainly didn't have the dental floss I hoped to purchase locally. A sad situation for this business.

Our Target is a big, clean, bright store but they have very little inventory. Empty shelves and what is there is overpriced. I've never bought anything there except for grocery items when they go on sale. I'm not surprised they are closing, I rarely see anyone in the store when I am there and the parking lot is usually empty when I drive by.

I don't shop at Target in Minot as much as I use to. The children's clothing is pretty good, and I do have a red card which gives me 5% off all the time, etc BUT I have heard the main office is in France and I went to their web site and all I could find were a list of toll free numbers if you had any problems. No where could I find corporate addresses and names and phone numbers. I also check a couple of other web sites. I have a great KMart here, easy parking, great service and prices a bit higher on some product, some lower that Walmart.
we do get a lot of Canadians here to shop all the time and we thank you for that.

This post was edited by marie-ndcal on Thu, Jan 15, 15 at 11:51

If the headquarters is in France, maybe it really is pronounced Tar-zhay' (Tar-jhay'?). I thought it was a joke. :-)

I absolutely love shopping at Target in the U.S., but sadly we Canadians never got the same Target that our American friends have always had. The Target stores here carry much less inventory, and the prices are nowhere near competitive to the American stores, even when our dollar was closer to yours. It is common to see entire shelves stocked with only one row of items closest to the edge of the shelf, and nothing behind them! That way it makes it LOOK like the shelves are loaded, but often it's only one row of merchandise!

The Target.com website has tens of thousands of products online that we'd love to order, but Canadians can't order and get shipment here, which is so very disappointing! I had hoped that when they replaced the CEO for Target Canada, that he would be able to turn things around and get the flow of products shipped out of the warehouses they were reportedly sitting in, and distribute them to the stores here. But that never happened, so the Target stores in Canada never had a chance to take off, because of very poor management decisions.

It's a shame, as Walmart knew exactly how to do it, when they came into Canada, and their stores are absolutely thriving here. I had hoped Target would do the same, as I prefer their store, but they unfortunately made that impossible, by giving Canadian stores very little inventory, uncompetitive pricing to Walmart, and no possibility of ordering and shipping to Canada from their Target.com website.

To the Canadian folks: Is there a store similar to Target that already has a foothold in the market? Are there WalMarts? Kmarts? What's your go-to mid-grade store (not department stores)?

Also, I wonder if the recent Target hack has something to do with it -- maybe the company wants to get its in-house financial security system in shape and pour money there instead of picking and choosing which Canadian stores to close.

A quick googling discloses the Target HQ is in Minneapolis. That's a foreign location for some of us.

Speaking of foreign, maybe Target made the mistake of trying to too closely replicate its US operations in Canada, without recognizing what needed to be done differently to accommodate customers in a different country with different market practices. Ethnocentric practices aren't restricted to American companies, others from elsewhere do it too, but it's common all the same. Especially with retailers, the Hall of Shame of retailers who tried and failed when setting up operations in foreign countries has many members.

Just an FYI - Target headquarters is in Minneapolis.

1000 Nicollet Mall
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55402
Phone (800) 440-0680
Website http://www.target.com

Tar-zhay is a joke to sound more upscale. And I think they're closing all 133 of the Canadian stores... leaving a lot of big empty commercial real estate.

I agree with pickyshopper. I was in a SuperTarget a couple of times in the U.S. and was very impressed by the products offered and the pricing.

But I live in Ontario - you would never know it was the same store.

Then there is The Container Store - we don't have anything like that here. I love that place.

Pammy we have Walmarts. That's about it for that type of department store. We don't have K-Marts, they all closed in the 90's I believe. We have Sears but they're not like Walmart or Target, of course.

No great loss. We were really looking forward to Target opening up in Windsor but they located ours out at the mall and it isn't doing well. I have been there only twice. It would have done much better I think if they located out in the East end. Windsorites are also spoiled by shopping at the Detroit area Target stores and the Canadian one is nothing like the US Target When our store opened it didn't make a good impression because there were a lot of empty shelves, low stock and that turned a lot of people off. I rarely shop at Walmart either and if I go it is because the person I was with wants to go. My friend does a lot of her grocery shopping there. Out of the way for me, I shop the stores in my neighbourhood.

A few years back, there were rumors about different specialty stores closing. I have seen this with Talbots and Easy Spirit.
If stores keep closing, our choices will be very limited. Target doesn't effect me, but my local Costco would.

I'm in the city of the HQ and they're out of half the stuff I want every time I stop there after work. So they have inventory problems in their own home town. I think they have a lot of problems based on my experiences shopping there. I don't buy as much there as I used to. My first stop for almost everything other than groceries is Amazon. I think the store is largely geared toward teenagers. They have very little I want to buy other than health and beauty aids and some groceries - when they have what I want in stock.

Many Canadians are disappointed in Target. A very bare
shelf store and not much of household stuff or clothing etc.
Another reason, they would not let the Salvation Army, no where near the store at Christmas time. What a shame.
They don't know how to win over their custumers.

I see that Target is the second largest retailer of its' kind in the US, second to Walmart. I've found it superior to Walmart, but this whole business is a race to the bottom (price).

Evidently Target's 'parent company' is Dayton-Hudson, which wrecked Marshall Field's and lost a ton of money too. At that time I thought that management in Minneapolis was ill-equipped to buy for the Field's customer. They eventually unloaded Field's to Macy's -- and the store has become more and more mundane ever since.

Watching "Mr. Selfridge" on PBS always makes me mourn the passing of Field's elegance. Too bad it didn't find a buyer like the Canadians who resurrected Selfridges! Selfridge began his retail career at Field's, leaving when he saw no opportunity to rise over Field family members. He was a great risk-taker, even winning Rose Buckingham over her prominent Chicago family's objections. (See:Buckingham fountain.)

snidely, you said "Speaking of foreign, maybe Target made the mistake of trying to too closely replicate its US operations in Canada, without recognizing what needed to be done differently to accommodate customers in a different country with different market practices." Unfortunately, I believe most Canadians feel Target failed here because it made the mistake of NOT trying to replicate its US operations in Canada.

In an article in the New York Times in 2012, regarding several American chain stores coming into Canada, "Ms. Gibson of Target said the goal was to largely mimic American stores, with some small changes.WeâÂÂve heard loud and clear from our guests that shop across the border that they want the true Target when it comes to Canada.âÂÂ

Unfortunately, they did not follow through with trying to replicate the same Target shopping experience Canadians get when we cross the border. One tenth the inventory/variety in Canadian Target stores caused frustrated shoppers to turn away, after such high hopes. Many American stores have successfully come into Canada in the last 10 years and are really thriving. It's sad that Target didn't follow their own advice about striving to "mimic American stores" in order to prosper in Canada.

Windsor is getting a Marshall's store, they have taken over an old Home Depot near Devonshire Mall.

cherryfizz, we have a Marshall's where I live now, and it's a bit smaller version of our Winner's stores. I find Marshall's has a comparable shoe selection to Winner's, but everything else is on a smaller scale. However, you can still find some good buys there, and the Windsor Marshall's will probably be larger, since it's taking over the space of a former Home Depot. The nice thing is, anything you buy from Home Sense, Winners or Marshall's can be returned to any of the three stores, so that's pretty convenient!

That is good to know. I do buy shoes at Winners

There is a Target store just a mile from my home. I was so looking forward to it when it opened because Walmart is on the other side of my city. Our Target is not a well stocked store except for the grocery section. We have other big grocery store nearby, one in the same plaza. The rest of the departments in Target were poorly stocked and the merchandise expensive compared to Walmart. I only went to Target twice this year, I am not a big shopper. The two times I was looking for shoes in my size. Both times they didn't have any shoes in my size (6) in any style. This turned me right off. Also the shoes they did have looked like clearance or surpluses items, certainly not a good quality. I am not a fancy dresser but I was not impressed with their selection at all. I think Canadians had high hopes that we would have good stores like in the States. Sadly it didn't happen.

Dayton Hudson no longer exists. They exited the department store business and changed the name of the company to Target.

cherryfizz, will Windsor folks still cross the border to shop here in Detroit area?

and do you have Costco and/or sam's club?

A few years ago we had both Sam's and Costco. Sam's closed. We still miss it. We preferred it over Costco.

Our Radio Shack was renamed The Source a number of years ago, and it's really struggling to stay afloat.

Sony is closing it's stores. There isn't one in our neck of the woods, but it's one more retail store that's going.

When Target bought out Zellers they completely revamped and enlarged the stores. It's going to be quite a retail store to take over the footprint that Target will leave.

susan, all of my family (except me) live in Windsor, and they definitely all prefer to shop in Detroit. The prices and sales are often low enough that we still save more money, despite our dollar being worth less. If one only needs a few items that are comparable price in Canada, then residents usually shop locally to boost our own economy. But if we're either doing a larger amount of shopping,or know that what we want is significantly less expensive across the border, then off we go. This goes against my ethics, but sadly, I can't afford to support our local stores if they're charging twice the price.

In Windsor, I prefer crossing over to shop after dinner, when the border crossing traffic is less, and it's usually a 10 minute drive across to Detroit. There is a much greater variety to choose from, whether it's at grocery stores or stores like Target. As well, Canadians can make up for our lesser dollar by utilizing savings opportunities that we can't equal over here.

Americans can get amazing deals by using coupons, much to our envy! Most Canadian retailers who do offer coupons put stipulations that say things like "Only one coupon per item. Coupons can't be used toward sale or discounted items. No redeeming coupons for cash value. No cash given if coupon exceeds price of item." And it goes on and on, so while Canadians certainly use coupons, we simply can't use them to such great advantage as American shoppers.

Yes, we thankfully have Costco in Canada, but the few Sam's Clubs could not compete with Costco here, so they folded and were replaced with more Walmart Supercentres.