What I was trying to get at was that consumers were gathering their "facts" about Target from the media and a significant number of those consumers never stepped foot into a Target Canada store in their lives.
I don't know why you put the word "facts" in quotes. If Target did a lousy job, and the media reported on it, and it dissuaded people from going to Target, then that's Target's fault, not the media's doing.
The media was not the problem. Nor was social media, which is where most of the problems first came to light. And none of it was untrue.
Here's a prime example of what I mean: when Target was in the early phases of liquidation they stated that things would be 10-30% off the original price depending on the item. There were many people who lined up outside Target's stores before opening expecting things to be at least 30% off because the media reported things would be up to 30% off. These same people used it as an excuse to blame Target further by saying that "this is yet another thing Target couldnt get right", but in reality the company never said that.
First of all, by then it was the liquidator, not Target, and unclear how the media somehow helped lead to Target's downfall or created false impressions when Target had already gone into creditor protection. Second, I don't have any recollection of the media making promises about better sales than there would be. Quite the opposite. The media was quite clear that the liquidation sale wouldn't start right away and that the initial sales would be 5% to 30% off. I just double checked many of the news stories from early 2015, and it was all quite clear - I can provide links if you want. In fact, we all saw stories about people who
didn't pay the media any heed and headed to Target for big bargains before the liquidation sales began - that has nothing to do with the media, but rather a general misunderstanding among many members of the public about how liquidation sales work.
And people were quite justified to bitch about the lackluster liquidation sales. It was the liquidator's strategy, not Target's, but it was all part of the overall miserable Target experience.
But if those people were actually price conscious they would have realized that the prices on many items were very similar with Wal-Mart's pricing (and even lower in some cases).
It took Target over a year to get its pricing competitive with Walmart. Target executives were quite open about that, and it was all part of their "we're now doing better" efforts.
I was astonished at the amount of people who passed up on low priced items at Target because that same item was on "sale" at another store for 20% off but it was still more expensive then what Target was selling it for.
I don't understand why you would have been astonished. Target created a terrible perception among many members of the general public. It is really difficult to recover from that.
but consumers were misinformed.
That's the thing - they weren't. Not in the least. Target f*cked up just about everything that could have possibly been f*cked up. By the time they started to get their act together, which also was widely reported, it was too late. The well was poisoned. Consumers weren't misinformed - they were well informed, and they'd accordingly largely moved on. And Target wasn't prepared to spend 6 more years (with 2021 being the year they predicted they could turn a profit) wooing them back.
If you think that there was information that was widely misreported, please share some links.
The media usually likes to leave out some important facts in order to get the story across (ie: in this case the very low Canadian Dollar).
The media is ignoring the low dollar? They talk about it endlessly, and the issue is front and centre in almost all media coverage of consumer and retail issues.
people like to misconstrue information and use that as an excuse not to shop somewhere because they think the issues are much bigger then they are.
Who "likes" to misconstrue information?
The sad fact is, neither the public nor the media knew how bad things actually were at Target. It was bad, but the problems later turned out to have been much bigger. The media was simply reporting on what was actually happening. People weren't under some false impression that things were worse than they were - if anything, people had no idea how bad things actually were.
I think I am done talking about Target in the Sears thread. If you would like to continue, I would be happy to do so in the Target thread. I will respond to any further posts that anyone makes over there. Cheers.