The Target Story: How the Iconic Big Box Store Hit the Bullseye and Created an Addictive Retail Experience

by Bill Chastain

Imagine if you could be a fly on the wall  as a family enterprise becomes one of the most successful companies in the world. The Target Story will help you understand and adopt the competitive strategies, workplace culture, and daily business practices that enabled the big box store to become the retail giant it is today. 

 

In an industry that has seen constant disruption over the last two decades, Target has experienced tremendous growth. Establishing a strong eCommerce business and cultivating a sought-after in-store experience has kept this iconic brand at the top of the retail game. From same-day fulfillment to brand partnerships, Target has successfully fought the domination of online marketplaces by thinking outside the big box.  

The growth, prosperity, and expansion strategies that can be gleaned from the history of the Target Corporation amounts to a masterclass in business. Yet, the Target story has never been adequately presented. Until now. 

Through the story of Target, you’ll learn: 


How to remain nimble in times of tremendous change.  
How to reinvent a six-decade-old iconic brand. 
How to know when to build it yourself or bring in the experts.  
When to change the entire way you do business. 
And much, much more.

Genres: Business, History

224 pages, Hardcover

Published October 27, 2020

About the author

Bill Chastain began his journalism career as a freelance writer shortly after graduating from Georgia Tech in 1979. Some of the more notable publications where his stories have appeared over the years include: Razor Magazine, Nation’s Business, SPORT Magazine, and Inside Sports. Chastain worked as a sports reporter for The St. Petersburg Times and The St. Petersburg Evening Independent before going to The Tampa Tribune in 1990, where he worked for twelve years as a columnist and sports reporter. While with the Tribune he also served as a correspondent for Sports Illustrated. Currently he covers Major League Baseball’s Tampa Bay Rays for MLB.com.

Reviews

[Hope · Rating 3 out of 5]

I learned a lot but I did not love the simplistic, childlike writing. It was a little juvenile for me.

[Mediaman · Rating 1 out of 5]

A really bad business-school type summary of Target's history that is filled with mistakes and skips over a lot of key information. It seems tossed together quickly from a bunch of outside secondary sources (there are 15 pages of footnotes at the end!) and the supposedly 200-page book is actually only around 100 small pages of actual text once you get rid of the non-stop repetitive giant pull quotes in red ink that appear every couple pages and the preview chapter of another book at the end of this one!

It's all very poorly put together. The mistakes are so glaring that anyone that knows anything about Target or Minnesota will shake their head. At no point does the author even tell you when the Dayton's name started to be used by the parent company department store. What he calls "Endina" Minnesota is, of course, famous rich-persons suburb "Edina," where Dayton's helped build the first indoor mall in the U.S. He claims one of the first Target stores was in the Minneapolis suburb of "Knollwood," but no such town exists. It's merely a neighborhood within a different suburb.

Then there are all sorts of tangents that the book goes off on, including the history of K-Mart and Wal-Mart, which sound like they'd be more interesting stories since they were so much more successful for decades than Target. What he probably means to provide context actually is more distracting from the Target story because there's no depth to the comparisons.

This book is probably meant for the college classroom, and if so then it's disappointing that students are not getting real research done by a person who uses primary sources. Instead it's a poor summary rehash of other books and is way off target.

[Karen Gedeon · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Target Story: How the Iconic Big Box Store Hit the Bullseye and Created an Addictive Retail Experience written by Bill Chastain read by Kelly D’Ambrosio – The Target Story takes the reader back to founder George Draper Dayton’s founding of Goodfellow Dry Goods in 1902 which eventually led to the Dayton Company opening it’s first Target store in 1962. This short history of Target covers not only the iconic brand, but it’s competitors and how they inspired Target management to success. Fans of Target and those of management will be interested in reading about Target’s successes, failures and what it took to get to where they are today. Adult

[Shriraj Nayak · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the story of how Target, a family enterprise, evolved into a global retail giant. It explores the company's competitive strategies, workplace culture, failures, setbacks, and daily business practices that contributed to its success. The book highlights Target's ability to adapt to changing retail landscapes, including its strong online presence and in-store experience. It also delves into the origins of the Target name and logo, inspired by a bullseye emblem, and the company's evolution from a small discount store to a major retail force.

[Harold · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quick read on the history of Target. A good entry point and Has a lot of insights from its start to the present day. There are other more in depth resources that would help the reader learn more about the company.

[Andrew Hoffman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Easy read. As a Minnesota resident, perhaps I had a bias, but enjoyed learning the history of the company.

[Abdul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful summary of how Target began and grew into what we know it today. I particularly appreciated the brevity of the book.

[Kole · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked it up on a whim, and went in wanting to know more about Target. I found it enjoyable and I formative about the history!
A dry but quick and easy read!

[Jordan Dickinson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Honestly terrible writing. It’s only interesting if you work there. The quotes are also terrible.

[Poppy · Rating 2 out of 5]

First 10 pages I read in the library were more interesting than the rest of it but I learned some stuff so thats nice🐩🎯