Target Boosts Store Visits With Early Start to Holiday Deals

(Bloomberg) -- Target Corp.’s drive to accelerate the start of holiday shopping paid off with a modest boost to store traffic last week. 

Daily store visits rose 6.9% on Oct. 11 compared with the previous five-week average, Placer.ai, a location-analytics firm that tracks foot traffic, said in a report. Visits were little changed on Oct. 10 and 12, the other two days of the Target Deal Days event. 

Target stores were already getting busier as shoppers returned to some of their pre-pandemic habits. The company posted an 11% gain in monthly visits in September compared with the same month in 2019, Placer.ai said. Relative to pre-pandemic levels, Target got a 3.1% boost in daily visits on Oct. 10, followed by increases of 15% the next day and 20% the day after that. 

The promotional period offered discounts on thousands of items from video games to kitchen appliances, and included Target’s app and website. Other U.S. retailers are also trying to pull holiday shopping forward amid worsening supply-chain headaches and the risk of merchandise shortages.  

Target rose less than 1% to $255.81 at 9:45 a.m. in New York. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. removed the company from its list of top stock picks while maintaining a buy recommendation on the shares. Target has surged almost 150% since the end of February 2020, right before the pandemic fueled grocery sales by forcing U.S. consumers to eat more at home. That far outpaced Walmart Inc.’s 34% advance. 

Goldman analyst Kate McShane elevated Walmart to the bank’s conviction buy list, saying the retailer is poised to benefit from supply-chain and e-commerce investments. Walmart rose 2% to $144.52 a share. 

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