BANGOR, Maine — It’s not so much an expansion as a redistribution that’s going on at Bangor’s Target store.
“The majority of it is adding a fresh fruit and produce section along with groceries to our store space,” store manager Dave Scott said of the changes under way. “We have to downsize a little bit of the rest of the store to do that.”
That means the store’s automotive, sporting goods, luggage, home improvement and children’s and men’s clothing sections will be scaled back.
The store’s cosmetics department also is being expanded to better appeal to the nationwide chain’s chief clientele.
“Our primary market is the young married mother with children,” noted Scott, who said he has seen a lot of customer surveys indicating a strong desire for a grocery section. “I’ve consistently seen that, at least once a week, with customer comments just about every year in my four years here.”
Target previously has offered a dry grocery section along with a limited amount of cooler products such as dairy items, drinks, frozen pizzas and ice cream.
Renovation work at the 120,000-square-foot store began Dec. 26 and is expected to continue until March 25.
“The square footage won’t change, but we’ll go from 25 aisles to 45 and the gondola runs [island shelves] will be 16 feet longer, from 24 to 40 feet,” said Scott.
The renovation resulted from customer surveys and a Target Corp. plan designed three or four years ago to remodel stores rather than expand them or build new Super Target stores.
Work is continuing and customers have been patient and understanding as the displays, shelves and store space change daily, according to Scott.
“Every single day we have to walk the store to find out what’s been changed and where stuff’s been moved,” Scott said. “We have signage all around redirecting customers to where things have been moved or are now. Customers have been extraordinarily positive because they can’t wait for it to happen.”
The store has scheduled a grand reopening sale starting Sunday, March 25.
Archer Farms
This is great, looks like Target will get alot of Walmarts customers
Sounds good – Target is far better than wal-mart. Sounds like they’re going to try to pack too much into that space though – narrow aisles are not a good thing.
I read elsewhere that it’s becoming a “PFresh” Target. This is their term for a store that sells fresh p: http://www.bangorbytes.com/2012/01/youll-be-able-to-buy-fresh-p-here-can.html
This is the stupidest thing ever! I go to Target for clothes and to grocery shop. So instead of spending $200 on clothing, I will purchase oh say $100 of clothing because there is less to pick from as well as a package of strawberries for $3. Who makers these decisions. I went to Target recently for clothes but they had nothing but clearance items I didn’t want. I would have bought $200 bucks worth if they had new items in stock instead of just the leftover crap nobody wanted for Christmas. Who makes these decisions?? The Bangor Target was one of my favorites but not now.
JC Penney, Burlington Coat Factory, Kmart, Sears, Macy’s and most of the mall stores carry clothes. There is pretty much nothing you can’t get for clothing here. What you can’t get you can get online now. As far as Canadians go, they flooded the Bangor area back when we had little more than the mall and Kmart – certainly well before Target ever came along.
The food market, on the other hand, has pretty much been dominated by Hannaford up until Wal-Mart entered the game. Trade Winds has given them a minute bit of competition, but there’s only one Shaws (and an empty parking lot where they were going to build a new one) and many of the IGA’s are under the Hannaford umbrella too.
Retail department stores used to have merchandisers who analyzed what their clients bought and stocked accordingly. In other words, they watched trends locally using people. Along came POS (Point of Sale) and the people were replaced by computer programs. Now, thanks in part to having to compete with Wal-Mart, retailers often buy cheap junk in bulk from Beijing, and hope to have a good run with the sales of the product.
This change in business model is one reason why if you find something you really like, you better purchase 3 of them because you may never see it again, or it may be back on the shelf two years from now.
At least with groceries, there is a chance they’ll buy local produce from local farmers. I hope they look into that.
You forget Shaw’s who abandoned both one store and their plans to replace it.
Target Superstores with full food service are common in the Midwest.
I referred to Shaws empty parking lot, but you’re right – that Springer St building stood empty for a long time before just a portion of it was taken over by The Christmas Shop.
I hate to be cynical, but I strongly doubt a national mega-chain will purchase anything local. Hannaford does pretty good with buying Maine produce, but I think that’s only because it’s headquartered in Scarborough (though, yes, I know its owned by a british company).
Actually Hannaford is owned by Delhaize which is based in Brussels, Belgium. Anyway, it’s foolish for a store that prides itself on relatively stylish clothing at popular prices to downsize its apparel offerings just to offer some prepackaged meat and produce of dubious quality and freshness.
http://business.mainetoday.com/news/070316buylocal.html
One thing Wal-Mart is incredibly adept at, jumping on the latest trend de jour – in this case, of ‘locally-grown produce.”
Mostly true, but for me Burlington, Sears, and Kmart clothes are a no go. Macy’s and JCP sometimes but Target is defo my favorite. My point was that if they think food will be more productive for them than men’s clothing that I think they are very wrong about that. Like I said if they had new stuff in I would have bought plenty, in fact the whole store was clearance, just mark it way down, clear it out and move on already.
@BangorBytes:disqus
I think it would be great if they were expanding the store for the food, but craming more into the same space is just going to make a spacious nice store to shop in cramped and unpleasant IMO. Also I don’t think it will lead to greater food consumption, it will just alter which store some of those sales go to and I doubt they’ll source more locally than the others.
not sure why it says bangorbytes in the middle of my message but I didn’t put it there.
I understand what you’re saying, but again, they no longer employ merchandisers as all department stores did back in the “good ole days” (I’m old enough to remember them) and they are at the mercy of what the warehouse ships. They get their setup diagrams and put up whatever they get.
There’s very little by way of ‘local’ wants anywhere in the US now. This is how they keep prices lower. Have you noticed that in Kmart (for example) there always appears to be all of a handful of employees and the store’s a total mess? It never used to be that way before point of sale. Departments had managers, assistant managers, and merchandisers (each department). They also had employees assigned to keep each department clean and well-stocked. Now it’s basically hardlines and softlines. It’s a shell of what it once was because when Wal-Mart moved in, they quickly went down the tubes trying to compete with the buying power of the big W.
A few years back I worked at Target. They take their customer service feedback quite seriously. Every day there is a report they have access which provides them a vast array of statistical data from the previous day’s (week’s and month’s) customer surveys that you are asked to fill out for a chance to win a gift card.
The Bangor area got a lot of feedback about providing more groceries, and they tend to have much less clearance of foodstuffs than clothing (particularly womens clothing – men’s not so much). They’ve got to stay current with the Bangor areas needs in order to compete with Wal-Mart. The Canadians may blacken the ink in their ‘Black Friday,’ but for the most part, the customer service base is the surrounding (and not so surrounding) cities and towns which floats them the rest of the year.
Also, one must figure the Canadian exchange rate regardless if they build one up there or not. There’s a reason there are literally parking lots full of tourist busses each and every year (and very early this year I noticed). Not only has it become a tradition for many Canadians, they reap the benefits of a great exchange rate as well.
Also as for the Canadians, I know many and they too are moving on and getting Target next year. They were in a time warp in the 90s but now they have a conservative government focused on cutting taxes, red tape, econmic growth etc.. Bangor needs to raise the game and get outlets or something because many Canadians are moving on to Kittery etc.. Canadian shopping is also moving ahead and although they still come now we should still try to sttract them as it is we who are now heading for a shopping time warp. Cross the border into Canada and you will see a vibrant modern economy that makes Maine look very dated. We shouldn’t assume that time will stand still or else it will leave us behind and we will be scratching our heads wondering why our retailers, hotels, restaurants etc are empty.
oops I meant I go to Target for clothes NOT to grocery shop
Oh and I’m sure all the Canadians that come down to shop at Target are interested in fresh fruits and begetables that they can’t take acrioss the border more than clothes and other home goods…not.
I think it’s great that they aren’t going to abandon another box store building to build a megastore like Wal-Mart and Home Depot did.
They’re using what they’ve got instead. What a novel idea for a corporation. Kudos to them. I think Wal-Mart could use a little competition, and it appears that Target is the only one who can possibly pull that off.
There’s nothing more annoying to me than having to strap on a pair of roller skates to go from isle 1 to isle 150 if you forget something while shopping. I’ll also be willing to pay (usually no more than a couple of cents) more to find a decent parking space that isn’t a mile away from the door.
That’s a good point.. .about not creating another “Grey box” for us.
we been to walmart in bangor 3 times to many. I will never go into that store again. It is a circus to park and I seen every thing on earth it that place. Brewer and newport much nicer. Good luck to target hope they put run to Sam W.
I wonder if this is a coincidence that this anouncement has come out a week after BDN had an article that Shaws and Hannaford was raping the public in Maine with inflated prices and we did not have enough competition in Grocery stores for us to have prices as low as other states ! Hmmmmmmmmmm ?