Target Experimented In 2013 & Showed The Results in 2021

Want to know what Target did in 2013 at the start of its supply chain journey?

Set goalposts for its experiments.

Where a lot of companies fail with experimentation is they don't know what success is, and too often experiments are make-believe; as a result, when tough times come, they all need to be cut because there are no financial goals for their experiments. The CFO doesn't trust they are still worth the time. Nate Skiver fleshed out this idea a little bit - “many companies evaluate the ROI of each project or new capability individually and either abandon or de-prioritize it when results fall short, treating these initiatives as a budget line item instead of a long-term supply chain investment.” This is decidedly not how Target operates.

Rich Richardson observed that “far too many businesses still think of supply chain as a cost of doing business instead of treating it as a value creator.” I agree! Target seems to be getting it, better than most, but yes - agree.

One of the first things Target said before they started was this: "If this is going to work, our supply chain margins need to resemble a customer picking up something in the store."

And then it set about trying to make that happen.

Now 95%+ of all online orders are from their stores - either pickup, curbside, or ship from store. But that wasn't the goal - this was the result. Their goal provided them financial constraints around what "success" looked like for them.

Faced with the current business which is missing margin targets, and a (potential) future business that could dig them out of the hole, the CFO couldn't help but keep investing.

8 years later, look what happened.

Rick Watson

Rick Watson founded RMW Commerce Consulting after spending 20+ years as a technology entrepreneur and operator exclusively in the eCommerce industry with companies like ChannelAdvisor, BarnesandNoble.com, Merchantry, and Pitney Bowes.

Watson’s work today is centered on supporting investors and management teams incubating and growing direct-to-consumer businesses. Most recently, in partnership with WHP Global, Rick was a critical resource in architecting the WHP+ platform, a new turnkey direct to consumer digital e-commerce platform that powers AnneKlein.com and JosephAbboud.com.

Watson also hosts a weekly podcast, Watson Weekly, where he shares an unbiased, unfiltered expert take on the retail sector’s biggest players.

In the past year alone, Rick has spoken at many in-person and virtual events as well as podcasts on topics ranging from retail/ecom to supply chain/logistics and even digital grocery including CommerceNext IRL, ASCM Connect, and Retail Innovation Conference.

https://www.rmwcommerce.com/
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