Target CEO Brian Cornell says shoppers are pulling back, even on groceries, as they feel stressed about their budgets.
In an interview with CNBC’s Becky Quick that aired Thursday morning, he emphasized that the retailer has posted seven consecutive quarters of declining sales of discretionary items, such as apparel and toys, in terms of both dollars and units.
“But even in food and beverage categories, over the last few quarters, the units, the number of items they’re buying, has been declining,” he said in the interview.
And likely temporary. I talked to my boss about our expected merit increase (stupid name, it’s just the inflation increase) and he said to not expect as much as last year, which was also below inflation. We source our numbers from the rest of the market and target something like 65-75 percentile (higher than average, but not top of market).
Last year we got ~5.5%, and this year will probably be a little lower (like 4-5% maybe).