Fall officially arrives Saturday, but you’d think it settled in weeks ago if you’ve picked something up at Target or T.J. Maxx—or popped into Starbucks.
Over the past four years, for the same three months, foot traffic numbers have climbed as well. Last year, compared with 2018, the number of customers coming through the doors at Target, T.J. Maxx, HomeGoods, and Starbucks increased 21.5%, 2.5%, 8.3%, and 5.9%, respectively according to location analytics platform Placer.ai.
“It’s always important to be seasonally relevant,” Jefferies analyst Corey Tarlowe, who rates TJX shares at Buy, told Barron’s. “But what I think is key for TJX is not so much the fact that they are always on trend, but it’s the fact that they’re getting products that not many other retailers have, at the value that they do.
Elva Chen, who figures she visits Target once a month, stopped by to pick up a few nonholiday items she needed. A test of Melich’s theory is set for next month. Target is running a fall sale, called Circle Week, from Oct. 1-7.At a Starbucks in the same New York neighborhood as Target, the menu is seasonal but not the décor.
For the stocks, Target and Starbucks are down this year —19% and 3.9%, respectively—and TJX is up 14%, according to Dow Jones Market Data. For the month, Target is down 5%, Starbucks is 2.2% lower, and TJX has dropped 1.6%. “Learn from my mistakes last year and grab your cute autumnal pieces early,” one user captioned a July 23 TikTok that detailed a journey to find the multicolored ghost blanket at T.J. Maxx. The video has 75,500 likes.