Target Floats Shopping Boat to NYC
N E W Y O R K, Nov. 18 -- Sipping a cocktail onboard a 220-foot boat docked on Manhattan's West Side last week, Stacy Brown studied a $99 Black & Decker drill behind a glass display case.
"I'm wondering what man in my life would appreciate that," said Brown, an information technology architect from Baltimore.
As she pondered the purchase, other shoppers walked around the inside the boat, looking at an array of holiday gift items like a $7.99 add-a-link charm bracelet and a $59.99 karaoke machine, all displayed behind glass amid faux winter wonderland scenery.
Next to the cases were stacks of Post-it notes, which buyers stuck on a shopping list and presented to the check out clerk stationed in a tent outside the boat, who then rounded up their purchases for them.
"It's more of a showroom," remarked Kelly Mooney, president of an interactive marketing firm in Columbus, Ohio. "It's shopping without schlepping."
Anyone wondering who was bringing them this floating shopping experience had to look no further than the telltale red and white bullseye design shown everywhere from the boat's ceiling to the sailors' uniforms worn by the workers.
That's right — Target, the discount retailer, has finally dropped anchor in Manhattan. Until Dec. 1, the store is docking its holiday shopping boat in the city to give Target-deprived New Yorkers a taste of what the retailer has to offer.
A Floating Target
Target advertises heavily in Manhattan — a huge Target Billboard can even be seen on a scaffolding in Times Square — but the retailer doesn't have a store there yet.
The astronomical price of New York real estate, combined with the difficulty of finding a huge space required by the big-box retailer in a desirable, highly trafficked area, have kept the retailer in the the city's other boroughs.
"A lot of what Target sells is low-margin, high-volume items," says Eric Beder, retail analyst from New York-based investment bank Ladenburg Thalmann. "It's tough to make that work with Manhattan rents."
