WASHINGTON—
— Along interstate highways and in suburban town centers, sometimes separated by nothing more than parking lots, stand the warring titans of modern retail, shilling flat-screen televisions next to fortified milk.
Here, they battle for the heart and wallet of the American shopper. And your allegiance is as telling as your taste in cable news or the contents of your Netflix queue: Are you cloaked in Target's bull's-eye red or Wal-Mart's royal blue?
Each has its loyalists — and no wonder. The stores market vastly different versions of American exceptionalism: Wal-Mart champions efficiency, thrift. Target offers style, aspiration. Wal-Mart gives us low prices on everything we need; Target tells us what we want.
Yet the companies have much in common.
"The remarkable thing is that 80 percent of the stuff in Target and Wal-Mart is identical." said Charles Fishman, author of "The Wal-Mart Effect: How the World's Most Powerful Company Really Works — and How It's Transforming the American Economy." The prices are often identical too. The most recent comparison by Bloomberg Businessweek found only a 46-cent difference between the two retailers per $100 of purchases. (You'll save that 46 cents at Target, although Wal-Mart usually wins independent price comparisons.)
Target and Wal-Mart are, in short, the fraternal twins of American retail — sharing much of the same DNA, yet strikingly different.
Four stores and 50 years ago, Target, Wal-Mart, Kmart and Kohl's all sprouted up in America's heartland. The economy was booming and the concept ingenious: replace seasonal sales by selling discounted goods year-round.
The retail revolution came before the civic one, with a growing middle class lapping up toasters and Tide for cheap, cheap, cheap. Discounters catered to the haves and have-mores, anticipating, and cultivating, the have-it-now culture that characterizes modern consumerism.
For Wal-Mart and Target, success was born of the Southern and Midwestern values championed by their respective founders. Sam Walton couldn't have known his discounter would one day become the world's largest private employer. And the brothers Dayton wouldn't have guessed that Target would democratize design for an entire country.
Instead, they possessed an intuitive sense of what drives every customer, characterized by Natalie Gutierrez, 30, as she browsed ottomans in a Target in the nation's capital a few Sundays ago.
"I already have everything I need," Gutierrez said. "But I always like to come in and see if there's something I may want."
Upscale discounter
In 1962, the Dayton Co. opened its first Target store, at 1515 W. County Road B in Roseville, Minn. The five grandsons of company founder George Dayton hatched the idea for an upscale discount chain based on their existing low-priced Downstairs Store.
"What made them so successful is that they've been very clever at executing on their core mandate: They are the upscale discounter," said Laura Rowley, author of "On Target: How the World's Hottest Retailer Hit a Bull's-Eye."
"Bruce Dayton used that language in 1962. The family understood the department store model and made investments in customer service."
Even at inception, customers responded to Target's friendly and modern atmosphere.
"Doug Dayton first heard it called 'tar-JAY' in 1962," Rowley said. The tongue-in-cheek French pronunciation would stick and further the store's cheap-chic ethos.
A few months later, Walton left behind his Ben Franklin five-and-dime franchises to start Wal-Mart Discount City at 719 Walnut Ave. in Rogers, Ark. In the beginning, Walton was relatively cautious while scouting future sites, hopping into a glorified crop-duster to survey small towns in the rural South. Wal-Mart wouldn't grow with its signature ferocity until the 1970s and '80s.
"He was paying attention to places where nobody else was," said Alan Dranow, senior director for heritage and marketing at Wal-Mart. "Everyone thought you had to go to urban areas or towns of 50,000. Sam said, 'I disagree.' He wanted to serve the underserved. So Wal-Mart grew in rural areas before everyone knew what was happening."
What was it about 1962? Was it the housewives? The novelty of suburban shopping?
Wal-Mart, Target a sibling retail rivalry
This article
Wal-Mart, Target a sibling retail rivalry
can be opened in url
http://welcometarnews.blogspot.com/2012/11/wal-mart-target-sibling-retail-rivalry.html
Wal-Mart, Target a sibling retail rivalry
