Target Corporation is one of the top 10 largest retailers or online stores in the US. Headquartered in Minneapolis, the company has over a thousand stores in the United States and caters to millions of customers every year. From clothes to furniture to home décor items, you can get everything at Target stores at an extremely reasonable price.

You must have heard about and visited Target stores for their exclusive prices and attractive deals. But you should definitely know some interesting facts about this chain of stores and online retails that you already love.

Check these unique and interesting facts and stats about Target that will wow you out of your mind.

1. The Target Initiative

The Target Corporation was founded in 1902 by George Dayton in Minneapolis. The first store opened in Roseville, Minnesota in 1962 after decades of operation previously. It merged with the J. L. Hudson Company in 1969 and owned several departmental store chains before expanding into the online business and catering to customers in many countries.

Target stores offer great deals and discounts on good quality products for men,women, and children alike, along with home and personal accessories. They cater to the taste of younger customers in general, and sell trendy and cool products that people will love.

2. What’s in a Name?

In 1902, Target was established and originally named Goodfellow Dry Goods, after which the name was changed to Dayton’s Dry Goods Company in 1903. In 1910, it was again renamed the Dayton Company. The name again underwent a change in 1962 and was named the Dayton Corporation.

After taking over Hudson’s company, the chain got the name the Dayton-Hudson Corporation. The name Target Corporation finally came into existence in 2000 and has stayed the name of choice since then.

3. How Target reached its Target

After expanding nationwide with its exclusive stores, Target increased its sales and profits by leaps and bounds. It reached $1 billion earnings in terms of sales in the year 1979, while it had 79 stores countrywide. To celebrate this feat, they offered a “Billion Dollar Sale” for its loyal customers. In the present, their website alone has more than a million visitors daily.

The company reached the 39 th spot in the Fortune 500 list of the largest US corporations in 2018. When Target decided to expand into Chicago, they opened 11 stores on the same day. They have their own Target REDcard credit card, which offers free shipping, extended return period and extra discounts on all products.

4. Expansion In and Out

Target has many retail formats for cuctomers’ convenience. Its hypermarket division is known as SuperTarget. It also has flexible format stores, which were previously called CityTarget and later TargetExpress. Now, they have been consolidated under the parent brand. Target’s annual sale figures reached about $69.5 billion in 2016, which made them the eighth largest retailer in the US and placed them just after Amazon.

However, their short venture into Canada had disastrous results and credit card information of customers was compromised. They retracted into the US after a short-lived expansion and have had a smooth run since then.

5. Target: Save the World

Apart from being a pioneer of the lowest prices, Target has also earned a name for being environmentally aware and responsible. They have custom shopping carts made of recyclable material that weigh much lesser than the regular carts. You must have seen these eco-friendly red carts at their stores.

They also believe in serving the community and giving back the love and support. In 1983, Target was awarded the Arts & Humanities Medal of Honor of the President’s Committee by Ronald Reagan for their work in the arts and social services.

6. Competition with Amazon

Amazon and Target are two of the biggest retail brands in the US and are engaged in healthy competition. In 2017, a survey found that teenagers and schoolgoers prefer to check out Target for their school supplies rather than shopping from Amazon.

Out of the total, 64 percentage of survey participants preferred Target when it came to their back to the school shopping spree. Similarly, often people prefer visiting Target stores for the first-hand experience and Target website for more affordable deals.

7. Target’s Own Kitchen

As you know, Target has its own in-house brand for food products that come with good quality and cheap prices. If you are thinking where these products and recipes are made and tested, we have the information for you.

Target has its own kitchen for R&D where all the research and development takes place. Food scientists are employed here to make and test new items. Rumor has it that this kitchen hosts a Cake Week five times every year. More than 100 types and designs of cakes and evaluated in these events.

8. What You Will Never Get Here

Target is the destination for all types of products, but there is one thing that you will not be able to purchase here. They stopped selling cigarettes in the 1990s and have not resumed the service till date. With major chain stores being aware of tobacco’s harmful effects, they have stopped selling cigarettes and were one of the first major retailers to do so before the others followed suit.

9. Red Balls for Safety

You must have wondered why there is a huge red concrete ball in front of each Target store in the country. These things, called bollards, are in sync with the store’s icon and color scheme but also serve a greater purpose. They prevent cars from driving into the stores by accident and hurting shoppers.

Many people have been amused by these balls and often gone to social media with their photos or videos posing with them. So, it serves both safety and entertainment purposes.

10. What Happens to Surplus Products?

Since Target is such a big retail organization, it is but obvious that they have large warehouses with millions of products stored in them. To keep in trend and maintain freshness in their offerings, they clear out old stocks periodically and make room for new and latest products.

This liquidation is done by major wholesale liquidation companies like QuickLotz which buy the surplus products from big chain stores like Target, Amazon, etc, and sell them to small businesses at a reduced rate. Truckloads, pallets and cases are sold full of several categories of goods that small scale buyers can take at a low price and use them for reselling.