3 ms·

The argument isn’t that they’re closing the stores to promote a narrative, but that after deciding to close a store, they will spin it as favorably as possible.

chii 3y ago
So if the spin is not real, what is the reason, and why does it needs to be spun?
- aaomidi 3y ago
  The people who would be shareholders are ones that would also be a lot more worried about crime in general. These people are also more usually on the side of cops. Especially when it comes to “rioting”. The events of 2020 has allowed for a new boogeyman to be used in these decisions and it basically softens the impact.
rayiner 3y ago
> The stores include the East Harlem location in New York City, two locations in Seattle, three locations in Portland, and three locations in San Francisco and Oakland. These are all growing or at least stable cities with strong economies. It seems unlikely that they were forced to close these stores for some reason and was forced to come up with a post hoc rationalization.
- vGPU 3y ago
  They’re also (mostly) all known for their recent spates of looting.
fshbbdssbbgdd 3y ago
What’s favorable about announcing that you’re closing a store due to theft?
- BoorishBears 3y ago
  Which does the market respond better to: - We closed a store due to a miserable economic outlook: https://www.forbes.com/sites/pamdanziger/2023/08/12/consumer-spending-slows-putting-the-rest-of-year-at-risk-for-retailers/?sh=4cc8042810e5 https://www.forbes.com/sites/pamdanziger/2023/08/12/consumer... - We closed a store due to crime Some people assume if you're denying the retailers' claims on theft, you're really just burying your head in the sand about crime... but no. Target is a corporation. A decision like this is not made so transparently and neatly that you can package up it up in a headline. Whatever ends up as the headline is what Target wants to signal, not just to the market, but to its own stores and employees.
  - aydyn 3y ago
    Can we please stop being armchair experts? Go to the target stores in question, you can see people walking out with phat stacks every single day while staff can do nothing except watch. Pretending theft isnt a problem is naive at best but lets be honest its agenda pushing.
    - BoorishBears 3y ago
      Can you not project your own armchair tendencies onto others? At Target's scale any operational risk is large enough to be held up as justification for closing a store, and no single operational risk is why they'd close one, let alone 4. They could have thrown darts at a board and anything from consumer spending to labor to climate change would have applied without a single fabrication: their footprint is just that large. In the end Target framed this as closing stores for safety reasons: https://corporate.target.com/press/releases/2023/09/Target-Closes-Select-Stores-to-Prioritize-Team-Mem https://corporate.target.com/press/releases/2023/09/Target-C... Target did not choose to close stores for safety reasons. They're facing massive economic headwinds, a tepid outlook, and need to close cut costs. I shopped at one of the stores they're closing last week: people steal out of stores with infinitely worse margins than Target, and it's safer than stores down the block. They didn't just look at safety like the press release implies, they looked at a laundry list of factors: ones that the people who wrote that press release wouldn't even know exist, and decided on a strategy, then iterated on that strategy and the positioning until it came out like it did. _ I really thought I headed off the inevitable political soapbox speakers by stating as plainly as two letters that my comment wasn't political commentary but somehow you turned "n" and "o." into... "I think it's ok that they're stealing". Not all of us have had our brains so absolutely rotted out that everything is part of a political agenda. Maybe it's because I wasn't born here but at the end of the day I can't relate to the kind of animalistic governance-turned-team-sport sickness that some people seem stuck on.

chii 3y ago

So if the spin is not real, what is the reason, and why does it needs to be spun?

aaomidi 3y ago
The people who would be shareholders are ones that would also be a lot more worried about crime in general. These people are also more usually on the side of cops. Especially when it comes to “rioting”. The events of 2020 has allowed for a new boogeyman to be used in these decisions and it basically softens the impact.

rayiner 3y ago

> The stores include the East Harlem location in New York City, two locations in Seattle, three locations in Portland, and three locations in San Francisco and Oakland. These are all growing or at least stable cities with strong economies. It seems unlikely that they were forced to close these stores for some reason and was forced to come up with a post hoc rationalization.

vGPU 3y ago
They’re also (mostly) all known for their recent spates of looting.

fshbbdssbbgdd 3y ago

What’s favorable about announcing that you’re closing a store due to theft?

BoorishBears 3y ago
Which does the market respond better to: - We closed a store due to a miserable economic outlook: https://www.forbes.com/sites/pamdanziger/2023/08/12/consumer-spending-slows-putting-the-rest-of-year-at-risk-for-retailers/?sh=4cc8042810e5 https://www.forbes.com/sites/pamdanziger/2023/08/12/consumer... - We closed a store due to crime Some people assume if you're denying the retailers' claims on theft, you're really just burying your head in the sand about crime... but no. Target is a corporation. A decision like this is not made so transparently and neatly that you can package up it up in a headline. Whatever ends up as the headline is what Target wants to signal, not just to the market, but to its own stores and employees.
- aydyn 3y ago
  Can we please stop being armchair experts? Go to the target stores in question, you can see people walking out with phat stacks every single day while staff can do nothing except watch. Pretending theft isnt a problem is naive at best but lets be honest its agenda pushing.
  - BoorishBears 3y ago
    Can you not project your own armchair tendencies onto others? At Target's scale any operational risk is large enough to be held up as justification for closing a store, and no single operational risk is why they'd close one, let alone 4. They could have thrown darts at a board and anything from consumer spending to labor to climate change would have applied without a single fabrication: their footprint is just that large. In the end Target framed this as closing stores for safety reasons: https://corporate.target.com/press/releases/2023/09/Target-Closes-Select-Stores-to-Prioritize-Team-Mem https://corporate.target.com/press/releases/2023/09/Target-C... Target did not choose to close stores for safety reasons. They're facing massive economic headwinds, a tepid outlook, and need to close cut costs. I shopped at one of the stores they're closing last week: people steal out of stores with infinitely worse margins than Target, and it's safer than stores down the block. They didn't just look at safety like the press release implies, they looked at a laundry list of factors: ones that the people who wrote that press release wouldn't even know exist, and decided on a strategy, then iterated on that strategy and the positioning until it came out like it did. _ I really thought I headed off the inevitable political soapbox speakers by stating as plainly as two letters that my comment wasn't political commentary but somehow you turned "n" and "o." into... "I think it's ok that they're stealing". Not all of us have had our brains so absolutely rotted out that everything is part of a political agenda. Maybe it's because I wasn't born here but at the end of the day I can't relate to the kind of animalistic governance-turned-team-sport sickness that some people seem stuck on.