Target Marketing
If you have tried to buy any Royals gear at one of Kansas City’s six area Target stores, you’ve been about as successful as David Glass has been as a baseball owner. On a recent check of local Target stores, I couldn’t find any Royals gear. Not a stitch.
But they’ve got a bargeful of St. Louis Cardinals gear. In fact, the sportswear department in the Northland’s Barry Road store looks like it was designed by Mark McGuire’s fan club. Twelve racks are dedicated to Cardinals clothing in the men’s sportswear section. Twelve! Three T-shirt styles in multiple colors are on display. So much red and navy screams at passersby that you half expect to see a silvery papier-mâché arch looming over the department.
A few feet from the Cardinals T-shirts is a rack stuffed with Cardinals “home” and “away” jerseys. If you need a Cardinals cap, Target is your place in Kansas City: You have five designs in assorted colors to choose from. If you prefer classier Cardinals gear, you can pick up a golf shirt with the team logo on the left breast.
Do you have youngsters who are Cardinals fans? Never fear, your local Target store is here. A 10-foot-high wall display greets customers as they wheel their bright red molded-plastic carts into the youth sportswear department. On the display hangs an assortment of cute St. Louis Cardinals outfits for toddlers. Seven more racks of Cardinals clothing stand beside the main aisle of the children’s section.
A thorough search of the store uncovers no hint that the Royals call this city their home. “It’s really strange,” says an apologetic Target sales associate. “We have lots of Cardinals sportswear but no Royals at all.” Then she whispers, “Oddly enough, you may want to try the Kansas stores.”
But Kansas’ three metro Targets carry the same amount of Royals gear as the three Missouri stores: none.
So is this merely bad inventory control, or is this some bizarre competitive strategy of either Target or David Glass, the owner of the Royals, who also happens to be the former president and CEO of Wal-Mart, Target’s number-one competitor?
“We’d have to be pretty petty to stoop to not carrying Royals merchandise just because David Glass owns the team,” says Rodney Hall, the store manager of the Barry Road Target store. “It was simply a mistake, an error. We are all human, and humans make errors.”
Hall admits that customers have complained loudly that they can’t find any Royals gear in his store. “I mentioned to our corporate office that customers have complained that all we have is Cardinals merchandise and no Royals,” Hall says. “They explained that we were simply tied to the wrong team by a corporate buyer who didn’t understand that just because we are located in Missouri, the Cardinals are not our team of choice. It has nothing to do with David Glass owning the Royals and Wal-Mart being our major competitor.”
Wal-Mart did $240 billion in sales worldwide last year. Target thinks it can take away some of Wal-Mart’s sales in Kansas City. Three new area Target stores are scheduled to open this year. Four more will open in 2003 and another four the following year. The number of Kansas City stores will total seventeen — remarkable for a company that was absent from this market only a few years ago.
But corporate bigwigs have to do some homework on our fair city’s passions.
“We’re not trying to be Wal-Mart,” Hall says. “We’re trying to be an alternative to Wal-Mart.”
Here’s some free market analysis: Take down the Cardinals displays. Hang a few Royals jerseys in their place.
Oh, yeah; don’t forget that the locals have an improbable fondness for a little NFL team called the Chiefs. If Rams gear shows up on your shelves in August, your bull’s-eye logo will be a big problem.
