Target vs Macy's Halo Effect vs Horn Effect

Last week I posted an article with some thoughts on Macy’s new ON 34th private label.?I was saying that my skepticism after looking at the website turned into enthusiasm when looking at the actual floor set in real life.?I guessed that my enthusiasm would not be shared by all.?I was right. That begged the question, “What would the response have been if this exact offering had been dropped into Target?"

Target is, after all, somewhat of a golden child these days…deservedly so.?There seems to be a halo effect for everything they do.?They have 10 private labels all doing more than $1 billion in sales.?To say that’s impressive would be an understatement.?What would all of us experts be saying if this exact same product line was dropped into Target as a new private label initiative…????Would the halo effect of Targets’ past success extend to the scrutiny of this new line??Is the horn effect from Macy’s ongoing struggles coloring the lens through which we are trying to evaluate ON 34th…????(Horn effect…I had to look it up.?It’s the opposite of halo effect.)

I’m not trying to take anything away from Target.?They’ve worked damned hard over many years and made all the necessary investments to enjoy the positioning that they hold today.?And I’m not trying to add anything to Macy’s.?They deserve the skepticism heaped upon them by the market.?They deserve the One Day Sale aura that they have branded themselves with.?And they have an incredible amount of work yet to do in order to extract themselves from the boring middle.?“Remarkable” might be a stretch, but surely, they can shoot for “interesting”.?(Thank you, @Steve Dennis, for providing the “remarkable” context.)

So, is Target “remarkable”??They just might be, but not in the sense I was previously thinking.?I’m in Target a couple of times a month, picking up various household needs.?I always take a lap and zig zag my way through the store just to see what there is to see.?I have never walked to my car muttering, “Wow, that was remarkable.”

But yesterday I took a slower walk through the store, taking a lot of pictures.?In department after department, I witnessed very good to really very good product assortments and product presentation.?Good old-fashioned assorting to a plan-o-gram.?Good old-fashioned editing and curating for interesting assortments.?No racks in the aisles.?No horrible jammed or empty fixtures. ?I wanted to pay particular attention to the precision that had been exercised in the planning and execution of department after department.?It’s not just about remarkable products and marketing.?It’s also about remarkable planning and execution.?And the consistency of quality planning and execution was evident throughout the store.?(I could not have said two words of this about my last visit to a Kohl’s store, about a week ago.)

I toured the store on July 25th.?Summer is in the process of selling down and out.?BTS and Fall are trickling in.?Not a moment for gorgeous floor sets throughout the store, but for the most part everything looked good to very good.?I didn’t look for amazing and I didn’t look for horrible.?I just walked around the store and tried to capture a random day in the life of Target.

And what I kept on finding, department after department, was order and discipline and well curated assortments. And 90% of the time, great shopkeeping. I can never say that about Kohl's or JCP. I can usually say that about my local Macy's, but there are always reports of unkept Macy's stores bouncing around social media.

So again, given the transitionary moment of the wind down of Summer and the inflow of BTS and Fall, I have to give Target really high marks for how the totality of the store is managed. The level of curation and focus and discipline across the whole store is rather...remarkable. Remarkable given that I see it so infrequently in other store visits. This level of execution should probably be table stakes, but it's not. But remarkable should also not be confined to a high tech Apple store in a century old landmark building.

Can Macy's graduate from horn effect to halo effect? All it will take is time and money and talent and the right combination of patience and impatience.