Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT) bucked the "retailers in the dump" news this past weekend by opening up 45 new stores across the U.S., including its first two stores in the state of Alaska. The openings also included two newer prototype stores in Minnesota. As luck would have it, one of these store openings was located where I live. And it opened less than one-half mile away from an existing Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) Supercenter.

From conversations I've heard all summer, almost everyone looked forward to the new Target opening in my area. The feeling was that most of these folks wanted a competitor to Wal-Mart, even if it didn't mean lower prices. Perhaps they looked forward to the Target shopping experience instead of the Wal-Mart shopping experience?

The two Minnesota store openings included a new general merchandise prototype location as well as a new SuperTarget prototype location. Both include more space for food and electronics (two staple merchandising segments) and both were certified under the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program. Whether Target's newer stores will market this fact to the eco-conscious American shopper is unknown. The new store designs will be unveiled at more than 100 new locations in 2009, according to the company.

Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT) has started selling a Blu-ray disc player for what is probably the lowest retail price you can find one at: $229. I've said many times in the past that this new format will not catch on with consumers until retail prices routinely get to less than $200, so this new price from Target is nearing that mark. Of course, panicked U.S. consumers probably won't be buying any Blu-ray players the remainder of this year as they watch what wealth they did have evaporate in the markets.

The Target model is an Olevia brand player (yes, that's an off-brand), which marks a $70 reduction from a recent Sony Blu-ray player that is being sold alongside the Olevia player for $299. Still, unless there is some breakthrough difference that Blu-ray manufacturers and retailers can market correctly, most U.S. consumers will stay with their progressive-scan DVD players that sell for $75 or less and have a perfectly fine picture (although not true high-definition).

So, perhaps sometime in late 2009 -- roughly a year from now -- the market will see $99 Blu-ray players and regular consumers may finally feel the urge to buy one and start re-purchasing their movie libraries in yet another format. That is, until super-duper, high-fidelity Purple-ray players hit the market sometime in 2014 and the cycle repeats yet again. Perhaps by then, we'll all be out of this economic funk and won't be protecting our cash hoards, however little they may be by then.

Target Corporation (NYSE: TGT) reported August same-store sales at the end of last week with its head held down. The second-largest discount chain in the U.S. said sales dipped 2.1% for August compared to the same period in 2007 even with the back-to-school selling season occurring. Is fellow discounter Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) stealing business away from its smaller rival? With plummeting home values and foreclosures still in full swing, and even with a temporary fuel price retreat, that is probably the case.

Target did say that its August slump was in line with forecasts, and even the analyst consensus had predicted a 2.6% drop in Target's August sales. Although Target solidly upped the game on same-store sales performance throughout much of 2007 and into 2008, it's now seeing a role reversal as consumers are leaving more hip and cool retailers to the warm retreat of low prices that is Wal-Mart's moniker and always has been. Still, Target is a deep discounter too -- but it's feeling the negative effects of a consumer spending pullback.

Wal-Mart's "Save Money. Live Better" marketing slogan was well-timed and it's paying off for the mega-retailer. Target did see an increase in average transaction price in August, even though it did witness a slowdown in the actual number of transactions during August. Food and health care were top sellers for Target in August as well. Back-to-school items did hit a nice level late in the month, but even that was not enough to rescue Target from a solid same-store sales decline in August. Target's guidance for September was in the -1% to +1% range, but noted that current hurricanes may affect September sales.

This post is one in a series on prominent company nicknames. See all 25, and share your thoughts and memories about Tar-Zhay below in the comments.

Have Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT) shoppers all of a sudden become French citizens? In the last decade or so, I've heard many, many people refer to the discount retailer as "Tar-Zhay," instead of the boring "Target." Where did that pronunciation come from, you ask?

There are opinions all over on this one, but one strikes me the best. Target, despite its discount niche, has also become a favorite destination for fashion-savvy consumers who might otherwise shop at high-end boutiques -- except for the fact they want a good deal. The French accent is a way of poking good-natured fun at the apparent sophistication of Target's deal-seeking shoppers.

In fact, Target carries much of the same discount, commodity stuff we buy at other retailers, but markets that merchandise in a cheerful and upscale way. The shopping experience, is clean, bright, and cheerful. Just look at the gleaming floors in your local SuperTarget and the white and red colors that make it seem like a test for the senses rather than a dull retailer. Bonjour, Tar-Zhay practically flows off the tongue, as a result.

Earlier this year, chic and expensive retailer Sharper Image was purchased by a chop shop of sorts. A mall store with $5,000 massage chairs and insanely expensive geek gifts just didn't cut it in an age of high gas prices and home foreclosures. So the company, which went bankrupt, had its brand bought by Hilco Organization and Gordon Brothers Group. And guess what? You may see the Sharper Image brand again at you local Best Buy, Inc. (NYSE: BBY) or Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT) store aisles soon.

The Sharper Image brand may soon be pasted onto vacuum cleaners or sunglasses on retail store shelves. As people tend to buy brands as much as actual products, the brand will probably end up being a good investment on the $49 million that was paid to purchase it after the bankruptcy. It's pretty sad that such negative publicity about a single product -- the Ionic Breeze air purifier -- led to Sharper Image's downfall, although I believe there were deeper problems at play. As in, people loved to look at (but not buy) fancy things with grossly inflated prices.

It appears now that we may yet again see the Sharper Image name on infomercials, web sites and catalogs, as well as on some retail shelves. With an expectation of Sharper Image brand sales hitting an annual pace of $1 billion -- up from 2007's $375 million -- it's pretty easy to see why the owners of the now-defunct brand want to revive it. Customers know the brand, they trust it and they would love to see it on their new vacuum cleaner robot.

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) implemented another phase of its low-price prescription drug program this week, and as usual competitor Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT) followed suit with price reductions of its own. In addition to offering a 30-day supply of many popular generic prescription drugs for $4, Wal-Mart is now offering a 90-day supply for $10. And so is Target.

Is Target just trying to keep up, or does it see a benefit in matching drug price cuts by its larger competitor? In response to the price cuts, Target said that it "understands the challenges guests are facing in the current economic environment." It probably planned to make these price cuts as soon as Wal-Mart did and gain the same kind of free PR that comes with such a drastic price reduction in something that millions of Americans now depend on.

But Target does not position itself as the "low price" leader like Wal-Mart does. Its marketing is more upscale, and so is the appearance of its stores -- even while carrying much of the same merchandise. So why is Target matching these prescription drug price cuts? Is it trying to take customers from Wal-Mart? Of course -- the two are fierce competitors even though marketing and merchandise presentation strategies are what I'd consider to be worlds apart. Sometimes, price is everything.

When longtime Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT) CEO Bob Ulrich retires soon, he'll leave behind a very impressive legacy. Target, the second-largest discount retailer in the U.S., has grown alongside its larger competitor Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT). While Wal-Mart was opening stores and increasing sales at a blistering pace, Target was no slouch. Even though Wal-Mart grew much faster, Target's strategy worked pretty darn effectively, too.

Target seemed to beat Wal-Mart to the punch on the trends many customers cared about: brand-name clothing, hip marketing, clean and bright stores and very effective marketing and merchandising of its own store-brand product lines. While Wal-Mart became the generic big-box store, Target seemed to be the store shoppers flocked to to stay away from Wal-Mart's lifeless marketing, boring stores and grand-central-station customer traffic. In other words, price isn't everything to every U.S. retailer customer.

Now that Ulrich is retiring, his longtime company sidekick Gregg Steinhafel will be taking over with some lingering challenges that will put him on the hot seat almost immediately. Target is suffering, along with other retailers, from a seemingly-persistent economic slump and from the performance of its credit-card business (which is being hit with defaults due to consumer credit problems nationwide). Although things can be rosy at Target, they aren't for all of its customers at this time. With rising energy prices and the spike in food staple prices recently, Target's store brands like Archer Farms may suffer or need to be priced at the level of brand names -- and then they may lose their appeal to consumers looking for quality alternatives to higher-priced brand names. Steinhafel will have his plate full as he takes over when Ulrich turns 65 --Target's mandated retirement age for the CEO position.

Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT) said this week that it wrote off 8.1% of its internal credit card loans in March. In case you haven't heard, consumers are grappling with record gas prices, rising food prices and the worst housing market in 25 years. As such, consumers are defaulting on more than just mortgage debt from short-sighted loans.

The second-largest discount retailer in the U.S. said that defaults from its own consumer credit line totaled $55.5 million for the month of March alone. In February, Target's annualized credit card balance write-off amount stood at 6.8%, which climbed to 8.1% in March. It's been suggested that Target take a long, hard look at its credit card operations, and the subject comes up every quarterly conference call when analysts continue to scratch their heads on why Target has such visibility to the credit market -- and the deterioration of it throughout 2008.

Target appears to also be in talks with JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) to sell about half of its own credit card operations for about $4 billion, but there is nothing final yet. target also indicated that it had been talking with another potential suitor. In all, Target's credit card operations are worth about $8.3 billion -- a chunk the retailer would better use to build new stores and amplify share buybacks beyond past levels. However, revenue from the retailer's credit card operations is nothing to sneeze at either. For example, the retailer saw profit of $532 million just from its credit card operations along in the fourth quarter of 2007.

When the going gets tough, the CEO gets dropped. At least, that's what happened at retailing giant Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT) in 2007. Company CEO Bob Ulrich saw his salary and bonuses reduced by 42% last year as the discount retailer failed to meet sales expectations and saw its stock price decline.

Like many CEOs, Ulrich's compensation is tied to its stock price and to the company's financial performance. Although he received $1.66 million in pay and non-stock compensation of $2.89 million (down from $6.13 million), Ulrich's total compensation dropped 67% in 2007 to $12.2 million.

Sounds like quite a bit to many of us, yes? Target explained that some of Ulrich's stock awards for the year were actually made in previous years and expensed in 2007, which makes up for some of the amount. Target officials were pretty clear about saying, "Our financial results in 2007 fell well short of our goals . . . as a result, non-equity incentive payouts for executive officers were near the low end of the payout range, and long-term performance share award payouts were negatively impacted."

Still, more than $12 million is not a bad payday.

Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT) is a retailer that's been known to find and feed customer niches better than any other discount retailer. From its bright store colors to trendy and chic items in several departments, the retailer has shown Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) that it can indeed compete. And, very well.

One of the more interesting product niches that's been explored recently has been higher-end women's cosmetics. When six beauty products rack up a retail bill of more than $200, you know there's something to be celebrated. No longer are Dillard's Inc. (NYSE: DDS) and Macy's Inc. (NYSE: M) the exclusive way many women buy those extremely lucrative cosmetic products with the hefty profit margins. Nope, Target's moving into the arena aggressively from all appearances.

Target is now stocking upper-end cosmetic brands like Clarins, Kiehl's, Origins, Bare Escentuals and Bumble and Bumble. Although the retailer's move was studied this past Tuesday, it certainly was no April Fool's joke. But do these brands care that the positioning Target will provide will undermine the premium brand luxury awareness and hefty prices at department store partners?

Many of these brands say they have no relationship with Target; therefore, Target's source may be the gray market. They are free to do that, but perhaps Target is just testing the waters of luxury cosmetics before making an official plunge in most of its national stores. Not so strangely, the experiment could easily work with Target's unique position in the market.

Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT) will soon begin having its meat vendors label their products as having been treated with carbon monoxide. In general, treating fresh meat with carbon monoxide makes meat appear fresh to the shopper, much like treatment with sodium nitrite does. Both products, however, are really not something you want to ingest into your body. The only problem is that labeling laws don't really require this information to be highlighted on meat labels.

So, Target wants to be more truthful with its customers. Remember, it's Target's product you're buying -- not Hormel's or Cargill's. Even though those two companies are the main meat vendors, the last stop is Target's shelves. Target made a very good decision. Empowering customers with information is something that retailers better wake up to. Your competitor will if you won't.

The new labeling will read "Color is not an accurate indicator of freshness. Refer to use or freeze by date." Just like food coloring is used to spruce up pre-packaged and processed foods, the inclusion of carbon monoxide in fresh meats (well, not that fresh) is something many customers want to know about. Next up, we'll see if Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) responds to Target's initiative and requires the same labeling changes from its pre-packaged meat vendors.

Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT) has been on a roll lately, keeping larger competitor Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) on its toes when it comes to clean and modern store design, merchandising and presentation. And it's done all this while maintaining affordability.

A big idea Target pioneered was joining well-known names with apparel and home fashion product lines. One of the most recognizable was the partnership with Martha Stewart for home fashions like pillows and living room furnishings. Then came the apparel lines that joined celebrity brand names with plain-jane clothing lines, while keeping prices as low as any other retailer.

But now the cat is out of the bag, as both Wal-Mart and "mall store outside the mall" retailer Kohl's Corp. (NYSE: KSS) are partnering with all types of celebrity names for product lines ranging from candles to baby blankets. The trend Target created is now rolling out everywhere, and at the same time, Target's sales have recently slowed after many quarters of fantastic growth. In February, Target's same-store sales inched up just 0.5%. Target hopes that the economy is to blame for its recent sales slowdown, because if the duplication of its strategy by the competition is to blame, Target may be in for some slow sales quarters this year.

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) and Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT) are in this one together, and we're not talking a battle for retail supremacy here. The two mega discount retailers face an ongoing patent lawsuit over their use of RFID technology to keep track of warehouse and retail inventory levels and automated ordering and processing.

It's hard to imagine a commodity technology being used in so many ways by retailers the world over being patented, but that's just what Houston, Tx. citizen Ronald Bormaster is claiming. Bormaster's RFID patent covers RFID in a way that ensures pallets and units of merchandise don't "collide" when being handled in an automated fashion, and he assigned the patent to a Houston company called "RFID World" -- which is not even using the system on a commercial basis to this day.

Wal-Mart and Target both have asked the patent lawsuit to be thrown out, arguing that it has no merit and that Bormaster's patent isn't a patent in the first place. The retailers say, based on a 2005 University of Arkansas study, that RFID allows in-store merchandise to be replenished three times more quickly when RFID is involved as opposed to manually-scanned bar code systems. Would customers see visible inconveniences in stores if this patent lawsuit was won by Bormaster and RFID was no longer allowed to be used by the two retailers? They say yes. Procter & Gamble Co. (NYSE: PG)'s Gillette brand is also involved with this dispute since it's a large proponent of using RFID in its mass production facilities with its partners. All three companies want the case to be thrown out in its entirety.

Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT) is set to deploy two larger-store prototypes in 2008 that will apparently be bigger than current Target locations and green certified as the company promotes a more environmentally conscious shopping experience to its customers.

In terms of more greener stores, Target joins larger competitor Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT), which recently held a company-wide meeting where 'being green' was the central theme of the show. One of the prototype locations will be a general merchandise store and one will be a SuperTarget location -- and both are scheduled to open in October. Both will feature added space for consumer electronics as well as grocery items.

If all goes well with the new Target prototypes, the discount retailer plans to deploy the prototype designs at more than 100 locations in 2009. Target rolls out prototype designs every four to five years to keep the consumer shopping experience fresh. There's a competitive edge: there are not too many (if any) national retailers I know of that change store designs on a large scale on such a frequent basis.

Welcome to the 49th installment of The Wal-Mart Weekly, a column dedicated to bringing you insight, wit, facts, results, opinions and just a bit of everything else when it comes down to a very hot topic these days: Wal-Mart.

In the last edition of The Wal-Mart Weekly, I peered into the customer returns process at the world's largest retailer. This week, Wal-Mart will go on hiatus for a week while I perform the same experiment on its closest competitor, Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT). As such, Target is my special guest on this week's Wal-Mart Weekly.

Although it seemed to me that there was a process breakdown and too much of a liberal take on returning several items to Wal-Mart in last week's column, it was a little different at Target. At least the packages were looked into this week, but there was more to it as well.