 |
|
|
|||||
Shares in Target Corporation (NYSE: TGT) are sinking this morning after the company made a few significant announcements. First, the retailer released its Q2 2025 results, which revealed it is still facing substantial sales headwinds. Next, the company said it will soon have a new CEOits first chief executive change in over a decade. And Wall Street isnt reacting favorably to either bit of news, based on how TGT shares are reacting in pre-market trading as of the time of this writing. The stock price is currently down nearly 10% to just above $95 per share. Heres what you need to know. Targets disappointing Q2 2025 Today, Target announced its second quarter 2025 results before markets opened. Those results came in slightly ahead of the already low investor expectations, but they were also still down from the same period a year earlier. For its Q2 2025, Target reported the following: Earnings per share (EPS): $2.05 Revenue: $25.21 billion As CNBC notes, those figures actually came in slightly above LSEG analyst expectations, which were an expected EPS of $2.03 and expected revenue of $24.93 billion. Yet those small beats werent enough to discourage investors from dumping the stock. Target reported several other metrics that show the company is still struggling. The company revealed that its net sales were down 0.9% for the quarter, with comparable sales decreasing by 1.9%. Its net income for the quarter was $935 million, which was down significantly from the $1.19 billion in net income in the same quarter a year earlier. Likewise, its revenue of $25.21 billion for the quarter was also down from a year earlier, when net revenue totaled $25.45. The company also maintained its current full fiscal 2025 forecast of an adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of between $7.00 and $9.00. This forecast expects the company to see a low-single digit decline in sales. The company previously cut back its initial full-year forecast back in May. Meet Targets new CEO, Michael Fiddelke In addition to announcing its Q2 2025 results, Target also revealed that it would be getting a new CEO. The company announced that its current CEO, Brian Cornell, will be stepping down from the role in February 2026. On February 1, its new CEO, Michael Fiddelke, will take the reins. Cornell has been Targets CEO since 2014. Incoming CEO Michael Fiddelke [Photo: Target] Fiddelke himself is no stranger to Target. Hes been with the company for two decades, first starting at the retailer as an intern. Fiddelke rose through Targets ranks through the years, and currently serves as the companys chief operating officer (COO). He was also previously the companys chief financial officer (CFO). Announcing the CEO transition, Targets lead independent director of the companys Board of Directors, Christine Leahy, said that Fiddelke is the right leader to return Target to growth, refocus and accelerate the company’s strategy, and reestablish Target’s position as a leader in the highly dynamic and fast-moving retail environment. Michael’s tenure gives him unmatched enterprise insight and a base of strong team trust. But what sets him apart is how he combines those strengths with a ‘fresh eyes’ mindset, challenging the status quo to evolve how the business operates, differentiates and delivers long-term value.” After Fiddelke assumes the CEO position, Cornell will stay on at the company in the role of the executive chair of the Board of Directors. TGT stock is having a rough ride Target has been struggling for quite a while with declining sales. It is facing problems many other retailers are, including inflationary pressures; cash-strapped consumers who are cutting back on discretionary spending, which includes the majority of the goods Target sells; and increased competition from online retailers like Amazon and brick-and-mortar competitors like Walmart. In 2025, the company is also facing increased costs thanks to President Donald Trumps tariffs, which are raising the price Target must pay for the goods it imports into the country. Target must either absorb those rising costs, leading to a worsening bottom line, or pass them on to consumers, who may further cut back their spending due to those price hikes. After todays announcements, TGT shares are currently down nearly 10% to just above $95 apiece. And unfortunately for investors, the companys shares are just sliding this morning. TGT shares have fallen steadily over the past year. Since the beginning of 2025, TGT shares were down over 22% year-to-date, as of yesterdays close. And over the past 12 months, TGT shares have fallen more than 27% as of yesterdays close.
Category:
E-Commerce
Internet users are increasingly turning to AI tools like ChatGPT, rather than traditional search engines, as they look for information online, meaning businesses trying to reach them need to adaptquickly. “There’s this pattern that plays out on the internet, where a new sort of technology emerges that changes how consumers interact with information online,” says Alex Sherman, CEO and cofounder of startup Bluefish. Brands and marketers are always initially not quite sure how to place that and how to use it, but as consumer adoption scales, it becomes really clear that this is where the eyeballs are going.” With even search engines like Google supplementing raw search results with AI-powered summaries, showing upand receiving favorable mentionsin AI discussions is becoming as important to brands as appearing in search results or on social media. Today, that technology is generative AI. A recent Adobe survey found that more than half of U.S. consumers intend to use it for online shopping this year. Bluefish helps marketers track, measure, and optimize how their brands appear in AI discussionssimilar to how SEO experts have long worked to influence Google results. Bluefish, which works with companies like Adidas, real estate firm Tishman Speyer, and advertising giant Omnicom, sends massive numbers of queries to AI systems such as ChatGPT and Googles Gemini every day to determine what those systems are saying about its customers brands. The company then reports on brand visibility in AI results, the sentiment of those mentions, and how influential corporate content is in shaping what models have to say versus third-party discussions. Alex Sherman [Photo: Buefish] “Our technology analyzes millions of AI prompt responses every day to give marketers a really clear picture of how they’re being portrayed to consumers by those large language models, and then enable them to take action and start to actually optimize the way those models are describing their products and their services to those consumers,” Sherman says. That optimization often means adding content to corporate websites designed specifically for large-language modelssometimes in volumes far greater than what human visitors would typically consume. Useful additions include FAQs tailored to match the kinds of queries AI users might pose, Sherman explains. Because reaching the right audience is key, Bluefish recently launched a feature called Custom AI Audiences that lets customers track their performance by audience segment. For example, a bank could see how AI portrays its brand to financial advisers, retail investors, or college students. Behind the scenes, this requires sending targeted queries to AI systems crafted to elicit responses as if they were coming from those user groups. “We have a very expensive bill from the AI providers every month,” Sherman says. Bluefishwhich just announced a $20 million Series A led by NEA with participation from Salesforce Venturesfocuses primarily on large enterprises, with pricing and plans built to match their scale. Roughly 80% of its customers are Fortune 500 companies across industries such as financial services, consumer goods, and travel. Other firms in the space, sometimes calling their work generative-engine optimization (GEO), focus on different market segments. Since AI tools generate responses based on content across the internet, techniques for optimization can include AI-specific website adjustments, but also long-standing strategies like building social media presence, sparking positive forum discussions, and securing press coverage. Though the field is still young and AI tools continue to evolve, Sherman expects this area to claim a growing share of marketing budgets as consumers spend more time with AI. “It is sort of the channel that’s eating all of the other channels,” he says. “Ultimately, we basically see most online marketing as turning into AI marketing over the next few years.”
Category:
E-Commerce
In todays world, communication is largely done through one of two methods: smartphones or social media. Young children, however, rarely have access to eitherand experts say they shouldnt have any access at all until age 13 or later. That leaves many parents as the gatekeepers of their childrens social lives, long past the days of mommy-and-me classes and playdates. But an old-school solution is giving kids more independence: the landline. Once considered obsolete (AT&T even tried to stop servicing them in California last year), the home phone is making a comeback. Seattle-based Tin Can is hoping to lead the revival with a redesigned corded phone that lets kids call their friends and arrange get-togetherswithout involving parents and without the distractions or dangers of a smartphone, such as texting, cameras, or internet access. The idea for Tin Can came when founder Chet Kittleson was talking with other parents of elementary school-aged children at a park. “Every single person around the circle was like, I totally forgot that the landline was how I operated as a kid. We remember it as a utility for an adult and forget that the kids are a massive beneficiary of it,” he told Seattle’s Child. Tin Can founders Graeme Davies, Chet Kittleson, Max Blumen [Photo: Tin Can] Tin Can phones, which retail for $75, are modeled after a familiar 1980s design. Since few households maintain a dedicated phone line, they run on VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) and plug into a router or in-home ethernet port. (A Wi-Fi-enabled version is in the works.) Because theyre corded, kids cant wander too far, and parents can control when the phone is available through the Tin Can app. Instead of traditional phone numbers, each Tin Can has a unique five-digit code that kids use to call one another. There are no monthly fees. A forthcoming upgrade will allow calls to standard phone numbers (and emergency services) for $10 per month. [Photo: Tin Can] Kittleson isnt the only parent rediscovering landlines. In March, Oregon mom Britteny Mast shared on Instagram that she had installed a “home phone” for her kids. The post has received more than 137,000 likes, with dozens of parents saying they had done the same. Mast and her husband realized their children were so used to FaceTime that they didnt know how to carry a regular phone conversation. They also wanted them to be able to call family members without borrowing a parents smartphone. “My husband and I decided to just default to what we did growing up, and get a home phone. So far the kids think its awesome, and they love calling Grammy all on their own,” she wrote. Of course, landlines come with risks. More than half of all calls to them are from scammers, who often target seniors, the demographic most likely to still have a home phone. Parents today, just like those in the 1980s, need to teach kids not to answer unfamiliar numbers. What some parents are most surprised about, though, isn’t that their younger kids love the landline. Their older kids might as well. Landlines scratch the same retro itch as cassette tapes. For Gen Z, theyre a screen-free alternative that encourages conversation without emojis and builds deeper bonds. Plus, the cord is still fun to twirl. That said, the smartphone is in no danger of being overwhelmed. The most recent study from the National Center for Health Statistics found that in the second half of 2024, 78.7% of adults lived in households that did not have a landline. (Homeowners were more than twice as likely to have one.) At the end of 2014, that number was just 44.2%.
Category:
E-Commerce
All news |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||