Skip to main content

It Starts with T





I have several Very Large blog posts bearing down on me. Those are the ones that I generally try to find some reason to put off. They might be too controversial, or they need to be perfect and I’m not sure I’m up to the task.

Maybe...tomorrow.

Did you hear that Target in Columbia is going to offer you the chance to shop without going in their store at all?

Target expands drive-up service in Maryland , Lorraine Mirabella for The Baltimore Sun

 Shoppers can place their orders in the Target app, wait for a notification on same-day pickup and drive to a designated spot in the store parking lot. Their orders will be delivered to their cars within two minutes of arrival.

Well, everyone else is doing it, right? Grocery stores, and big ol’ Target competitor Walmart...

But wait just a darn minute. Are we not killing the goose that laid the golden egg here? Don’t the vast majority of Target sales come from customers who go in planning to buy laundry soap and a birthday card and emerge with several large bags and a receipt for $50 or even $100 dollars? Using an app and a pick-up service will force customers to make a list and stick to it.

That is not the Target experience, ladies and gentlemen. No indeedy. Not by a long shot.

Yes, we’ve got trouble, right here in Howard County. And it starts with T, and that means Target.

Why in the name of all that is holy would they mess with our suburban rituals? It is our American equivalent of what my Irish husband and mother-in-law call “going round the shops”. We haven’t a “High Street” anymore in many places. But we have Target to noodle around in, bump into friends, co-workers, and even our children’s teachers, sometimes.

When our daughter was a baby sometimes the only way to “get out of the house” and wander about in a dazed, sleep deprived stupor was to take a trip to Target. It gave us a sense, however limited, of freedom and autonomy as we walked up and down the aisles. Pathetic? Perhaps. But I think we were far from alone in our weekend-afternoon wandering.

Sometimes we had things to shop for. Sometimes we didn’t. But, of course, there were usually one or two things we needed. Shampoo, maybe. Or diapers.

Am I looking back in those days with nostalgia, or am I just grateful we survived them? It’s hard to say. I do know that, for us, anyway, Target hasn’t been simply a place to acquire merchandise. It’s an experience. Not exciting, mind you, but- - perhaps - - comforting. It fills a need.

None of this will be prevented by the new Target app and same day pick-up service. It will meet the needs of folks who always just wanted to get in and get out, no nonsense. They will very likely be glad to avoid the wandering zombies and “out for a stroll around town” folks like the rest of us. Maybe it will attract new customers. Who knows?

But I just can’t escape the feeling that giving folks the option of sitting in their cars is going to bring those receipt totals way, way down.

In trying to keep up with a popular trend Target may really be missing the mark.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Teacher Gifts

Today is the last day of school before the Winter Break. It’s a good time to remember the far-reaching nature of our public school system. You may not have children. You may have sent your children to independent schools. It matters not. You will be impacted one way or another. Yesterday I read a long thread on Facebook about several waves of illness in the schools right now. There’s influenza A and norovirus, I believe. And of course there’s COVID. Apparently in some individual schools the rate of illness is high enough for school admin to notify parents.  When I was little the acceptable holiday gift for a teacher was one of those lovely floral handkerchief squares. (I don’t know what it was for male teachers. They were rare in my elementary years.) These days the range of teacher gifts is wider and I have fond memories of Target gift cards which I have written about before. I think it’s safe to say that giving one’s teacher Influenza, norovirus, or COVID is not the ideal holiday...
1 comment
Read more

F ³: We Are Not Entitled

  A college student went missing. His family and friends were distraught. The community was encouraged to be on the lookout and spread the word.  Days passed.  They must have been agonizing days for those who cared about the missing student. Thoughts that foul play had been involved cannot have been far from their thoughts.  Then, at last, the student was found. Alive. The news was shared with the public.  So. Much. Relief. A family had been reunited with their child. Even though we know that life is complicated, I think it is okay to accept this as a happy ending and leave it at that.  But the world of social media says no. For every expression of joy at the news came questions and even judgement. It became clear to me that some folks felt entitled to an explanation. They wanted the backstory. It’s as though they felt that, by enlisting the help of the public on social media, the authorities now owed them all the details. Television dramas often weave curr...
2 comments
Read more

Separate and Unequal

  Remember “Separate but equal”? Remember how that really meant that Black schools languished in  broken-down buildings without adequate heat or toilet facilities, with cast-off, ragged learning materials, underfunded and largely ignored? The Supreme Court struck that down in 1954. The evidence was clear that separate was not equal. Plessy v Ferguson had led to - - no, endorsed - - deeply unequal schooling and opportunities. We tend to think of Brown v Board as being purely about racial integration. It was not.  It was about the logical consequences of segregation. And they were not, not, not equal. The ruling in 1954 didn’t transform public education for non-whites into a land of milk and honey by any means. But it articulated some essential truths in a way that made including everyone a legal precedent which could be relied upon and built upon. It was better than what came before it but it rested upon unsteady ground. It did not necessarily change the hearts or minds ...
1 comment
Read more