Target Corporation (NYSE:TGT) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Simeon Gutman: Good morning, everyone. Thanks Brian for the one more question. I wanted to ask, I don’t know the way in which you look at the consumer, whether it’s in quintiles or deciles. Can you give us a sense if you look at the comp that the business is performing? How that spreads across your best customer, your middle customer and then maybe your most occasional customer? And if there’s anything we could glean from that and think about how it recovers?

Brian Cornell: Christina, do you want to share some of the insights we have about the different guests that are shopping our stores today?

Christina Hennington: Yes. I think, obviously, we’ve seen the – as Brian talked about, we’ve seen a rotation in their wallet. And so the guests that are more engaged with our discretionary business are now leaning more on into our frequency businesses. But I would tell you a very compelling proof point that came out of the second quarter is how we performed during Target Circle Week. Target Circle Week was Target’s opportunity to demonstrate value, and give back value to our most loyal customers. This was a shift from prior years where we did Target deal days and the guests really responded to our actions. In fact, it was our single largest Target Circle Week ever. We acquired an incremental 500,000 plus guests, which is more than 3.5 times the average weeks acquisition rate into that loyalty program.

Our loyalty program, by the way, that already has 100 million members. And so the depth to which we’re relating to our guests is going to continue to be fueled by our ability to understand them and serve them uniquely and Target Circle is one way that we’re going to do that.

Simeon Gutman: And then the follow-up, maybe for Michael. If you look at the margin recovery of the business that could happen over, call it, the next year or so, is there anything that stands in the way of it, meaning if we see comps recover and bounce back, especially that means your signature categories recover. Is there any reason why we shouldn’t see margins continue along that path? I know you said we’ll answer it when we get back to the back half of the year. But is there anything that stands in the way of that margin recovery?

Michael Fiddelke: I think it’s the factors we’ve been talking about for a while now, Simeon, and to see a return to positive comp growth in some of those higher-margin discretionary categories, that would be a welcome benefit to margin for sure. One of the things we’ll need to continue to watch is the pressure we’ve seen from shortage. If you go back to where we were pre-pandemic, I mean that is one of the single biggest margin headwinds in the business. And so the path of stabilization, we were pleased to see shortage come in as we forecasted in Q2, but that’s still a material headwind on a year-over-year basis on a two-year basis. And so I think that will be an important variable to watch going forward as well.

Brian Cornell: Michael, on that note, as we wrap up the call today. I certainly want to thank our entire team for their efforts throughout the quarter. I particularly want to recognize our asset protection teams. We’ve talked a lot over the last couple of quarters about the pressures we’ve been facing with organized retail crime. And I really appreciate the work that our asset protection teams do each and every day to keep our guests safe, our team safe and allow us to operate safely each and every day. So thank you all for joining us. We look forward to talking to you later this year. That wraps up our second quarter call.

Operator: Goodbye.

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