What Are Target’s Key Growth Drivers?

Besides its booming digital business, Target’s (TGT) focus on exclusivity through “only-at-target” brands has been a key sales-driving factor. The company did well on its promise and launched ten exclusive brands across different categories including apparel and home. Reasonable pricing, differentiation, and exclusivity associated with these brands make them popular among consumers.

The company’ kids-centric clothing brand, Cat & Jack, remains immensely popular and generated more than $2 billion in sales in the first year of its launch. Besides, brands like Pillowfort, a new day, JoyLab, Goodfellow, Project 62, and Hearth & Hand, among others, continues to gain traction and are seeing strong growth.

Given higher demand for exclusive private label products, rival Walmart (WMT) recently unveiled four new exclusive private label clothing brands for men, women, and kids. Also, the company introduced a new home furnishing brand, Allswell. Meanwhile, JCPenney (JCP) also rolled out a new exclusive brand, Obsess, which targets young women. Moreover, Amazon (AMZN) already sells multiple private label clothing brands.

Target remodeled 110 stores in fiscal 2017 and opened small-format ones. These stores are generating strong sales and productivity compared to the traditional ones. The company plans to triple its pace of remodeling stores and expects to remodel 325 stores in 2018, while it remains on track to remodel about 1,000 stores by 2020.