target.com

Target has launched six new online-only brands, including Too by Blu Dot, a home furnishings line.

If you’re looking to buy something from one of Target’s six new brands, you’ll need to skip the store and hit up their website instead. The online exclusive offers include everything from a collection of baby apparel designed for Target by Zutano to home décor lines.

“We’re excited that for the first time Target has developed new brands exclusively for Target.com," said Target spokesman Eddie Baeb. "We believe these new brands will further differentiate Target.com from other online retailers and help us create a great shopping experience for our guests.” 

The new brands are primarily home décor lines, an area that has long been a Target strength. Each of the four home furnishings lines has its own, distinct personality. Too by Blu Dot has a funky, retro '50s vibe, while MudHut features eclectic designs that reflect a global theme, with offerings like Mexican motif and Moroccan gem. Boho Boutique is a home line that is reminiscent of a lower-priced Anthropologie. The last of the home lines, Room 365, is the most contemporary of the home brands.

That Target would focus so heavily on home furnishings for its first online exclusive brands is not a surprise to some retail experts. “They’ve always been in home goods. They’ve been strong and leaders in that area. And, that strength has eroded in the last two to four years," said Mike Tesler, founding partner at consulting firm Retail Concepts and a marketing lecturer at Bentley University in Waltham, Mass. "They’re looking to inject some excitement in that.”

In addition to the four new home-furnishings brands, Target.com is also offering up a women’s clothing line, Labworks, and Zutano Blue, a collection of clothing, and again, bedding and décor, for infants.

Online retail isn’t new, but Target’s mammoth push into the virtual space is new. Several retail experts agreed that the new, online venture is a low-risk way for Target to test new brands and increase profit margin. “The only thing that’s really going on here is higher margins in categories that traditionally aren’t brand-sensitive,” said Rob Frankel, branding specialist and author of “The Revenge of Brand X.”

Tesler also noted that offering products exclusively online is a good way for the company to experiment with new lines. “When you test it out online, then you have confidence that it’s going to work in the stores later,” Tesler said. At present, Target has not announced that any of the lines will be introduced in stores. “There are no current plans to have these brands in Target stores, but we’re always evaluating and considering new merchandise for our stores,” Baeb said.

Although you can only buy the products online, the Too by Blu Dot collection will be featured in five Target locations in Chicago, Seattle, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Westwood, Calif., through the end of January. There, guests can scan QR codes to buy the items online.

Dana Macario is a Seattle-area writer who loves to shop – both off and online.

Ben Popken

Shoppers graze through the toy aisles at a Target on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn.

More dads are buying the toys, The New York Times reported recently, as two-income homes and households where dads stay home are on the rise. As a new father, this piqued my interest. Supposedly marketers are changing up their toys to appeal to me more as a shopper. I went off to the toy store to see if this was true and what it looked like.

At 8 weeks old, my son's favorite toy is the brightest light in the room ($1.62 for a 4-pack at Home Depot), but I need to be up on the latest trends so that by the time he does start playing with actual toys, I'm ready. Like reading ahead a chapter for class, I headed to the toy aisle at Target.

Through my dudely eyes, I gazed upon the wares filling the toy aisles. I thought about the toys my kid might like, which is really what I would like him to like coupled with what my wife might let me let him like, as he has barely started to express any kind of preference in the world besides food, sleep and carry me.

I saw boxes of "Words with Friends" board games. That is, the Internet version of Scrabble (except they don't have to pay Mattel), come full circle. There was also a "Farmville" game. How could you translate the game where you hassle your friends through your status updates to help you grow your farm into a physical game? Well, that's because it's "Hungry Hungry Herd," which is exactly like the one with hippos, just splashed with a big "Farmville" logo.

Ben Popken

Zynga's Farmville "Hungry Hungry Herd" teaches kids about cause and effect, competition, and that original ideas are not a prerequisite for success.

I saw so many different kinds of LEGOs that were blatantly set up to play war. Ninjago LEGOs, LEGO Batman and Star Wars LEGOs. Which is totally awesome! But back in my day, you got the municipal gas station super pack/Nordic social paradise that you desperately tried to turn into a space fighter -- and you liked it!

Ben Popken

This reporter would have exploded with joy if he got this when he was 5.

There were two rows of TurboTax in the video game aisle, which seemed to me to be either an epic mishelving, or a genius example of complementary product placement. You can feel better about buying your kid "Call of Duty: Black Ops II" because you're also getting ready to file your small business expenses.

Ben Popken

It's just too bad that you can't claim the energy-efficient improvements you make on your virtual house in The Sims as tax deductions.

All the active toys are located the farthest away from the central escalators, I noticed. You'll have to burn a few extra calories if you want to get a baseball, soccer ball, Frisbee, or what I found to be my favorite toy there, a $14.99 "Table Tennis To Go" set by Franklin. Just stretch the retractable netting over the table, clip on and you're ready to play ping pong, no giant table that ends up being used as an abandonment ground for junk mail and failed craft projects required.

Ben Popken

Cost-to-fun ratio, this ping-pong net that attaches to any surface under six feet wide is the best deal in the store.

See, when we give a gift, what we're really doing is giving an idea. "These are my values and conception of what I think you value, expressed in physical form," is what we are saying. Which is why I'm so scared for that first selfish gift that I will give. That gift that is really more for me or the idea of who I wish my son to be. There's that crumpled look of when he'll say, "Oh great, just what I was hoping for," and we'll all die a tiny bit inside.

I didn't see any guys stuffing purple Easy Bake ovens, colored stacking doughnuts, and packs of Skylanders Giants into their carts along with steaks and frozen pizzas, but I did see men shopping in the toy aisles. I also saw women and couples. Maybe the fact that any men are shopping in the aisles at all is revolutionary. Maybe I also spied around a corner the ghost of myself, holding the hand of the boy my son will become, looking for something fun that I can give him in a few years. Naw, it was just some other tow-headed kid, looking longingly at a $179.99  rideable SRT Viper electric car.

Yeesh! No way are you getting that! Dad says no. 

 Related stories:

• Teen: Boys want an Easy-Bake Oven, too 
• The hot new advertising demographic: 'Man-sumers'
• Honda introduces car designed just for women 

Sandy Huffaker / Getty Images file

Last year's scene at a San Diego Best Buy store. Expect similar lines this year.

The most hyped and hectic shopping day of the year is just hours away. If you intend to fight the crowds to grab some bargains, you need to have a plan. 

A number of major retailers are opening earlier than ever – moving the start of Black Friday to Thanksgiving. Some have staggered the door-buster sales. 

The newspapers are filled with special Black Friday circulars. You can see most of what’s available  at sites such as bfads.net, blackfriday.com and blackfriday.gotadeal.com. 

The editors at dealnews.com analyzed these ads and concluded that some products are being offered at all-time low prices – but not all.  For example, you’ll find the best prices on toys not on Black Friday, but instead two weeks before Christmas. Dealnews put together a list of 10 things not to buy on Black Friday. 

Hate crowds?  You might be able to shop from home. While some door-buster deals can only be snagged at the store, most Black Friday specials can be found online.  Dealnews found that 70 percent of the deals available at Wal-Mart and Target stores on Thanksgiving last year were also available online for the same price or less.  

Let’s go shopping! 
Here’s a rundown of what’s happening at some of the nation’s biggest retailers (in alphabetical order): 

• Best Buy: The electronics retailer starts its Thanksgiving Weekend sale at midnight on Friday. To make things easier, they hand out tickets two hours before the store opens. BestBuy.com is open on Thanksgiving. 
• JCPenney: This is the store’s only sale of the year. Prices on hundreds of items (online and in the store) will be reduced for one day only, starting at 6 a.m. on Black Friday. Store employees will hand out holiday buttons that offer the chance to win one of 20 million gifts, including gift cards, merchandise and vacations. This promotion starts on Black Friday and runs through Christmas Eve. 
• Kmart: The store’s three day sale is the earliest of the bunch and there are three rounds of doorbusters – both in-store and online. Round one is on Thanksgiving Day from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the stores and 5 a.m. to 7 p.m. online. Round two goes from 8 p.m. to 3 a.m. at the stores and 7 p.m. until 5 a.m. online. Round three, on Black Friday, runs between 5 a.m. and 11 a.m. at the stores and 4 a.m. and 1 p.m. online. Did you get all that? 
• Kohl’s: Things get going Wednesday as 500 Early Bird specials went on sale at Kohls.com. The stores open at midnight on Friday. Shoppers get $15 Kohl’s Cash for every $50 they spend in store or online, with no limit during this “Operation: Black Friday” sales event. Kohl’s “Dream Receipts” promotion starts on Friday and runs through Christmas Eve. Every day, one shopper at each store and online will be picked at random and Kohl’s will pick up the tab. No purchase necessary. 
• PetSmart: Pet parents will find Black Friday deals online beginning Thanksgiving Day. Some pre-Black Friday items, discounted by as much as 75 percent, are already available online. Retail stores open at 7 a.m. on Friday. 
• Sears: The bargain-hunting (both online and in the stores) starts at 8 p.m. on Thursday and continues through 10 p.m. on Black Friday. Sears says it is offering more than a thousand doorbuster deals during its 26-hour sales event broken into two groups. Some go on sale at right away. The rest are available starting at 4 a.m. Black Friday. Check the Sears Thanksgiving and Black Friday circular for a savings pass or online purchase code that gives you an extra 10 percent off when you spend $40 or more on clothing, intimates, sleepwear, accessories, fragrances and cosmetics. “Shop Your Way” members get extra perks for this sale. Check out the deals and door-busters at sears.com/Black Friday. 
• Staples: The world’s largest office products company promises savings online and at the store. Early Bird Deals are available on Black Friday from 5 a.m. until noon. Find savings of $200 or more on select HP personal computers with Windows 8.  Online orders are shipped for free. A new service this year: you can reserve products online and pick them up at the store, normally within two hours of ordering. 
• Target: Black Friday starts at 9 p.m. on Thursday. That’s the earliest Target has ever opened on Thanksgiving Day. Also new this year, additional doorbusters will go on sale at 4 a.m. on Black Friday.  Shoppers who spend $50 or more on apparel, accessories or home products between 4 a.m. and noon on Friday will get a $10 Target gift card to use on a future purchase. Target says its website will have exclusive discounts starting Thanksgiving Day. 
• Toys R Us: The fun starts at 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving. Look for the Thanksgiving weekend circular in newspapers on Thursday. Those sale items will also be posted at Toysrus.com. You can see some of the deals right now on the company’s Facebook page. The first 200 customers in line when each store opens will receive a free “Great Big Goody Bag” filled with stocking-stuffers and valued at $30. For those who don’t want to give up their Thanksgiving to shop, Toys R Us and Babies R Us will offer a new selection of doorbuster deals at 5 a.m. Friday morning. 
• Wal-Mart: The doors open at 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving night, two hours earlier than last year. This is just the first of three Black Friday sales at Wal-Mart. The electronics event begins at 10 p.m. and the third wave of door-busters starts at 5 a.m. on Friday and lasts through the weekend. Something else new this year at Wal-Mart: the “1-Hour In-Stock Guarantee” on Thanksgiving night. Customers who are inside the store or in-line between 10 p.m. and 11 p.m. are “guaranteed” to get super-low prices on the Apple iPad2, an Emerson 32” TV and LG Blue-ray player. If any of these items sell out before 11 p.m., and the customer pays for it before midnight, the product will be shipped to that Wal-Mart store for pick up before Christmas.

(You can print a simple list of Black Friday 2012 store hours at Cheapism.com)

More Black Friday Resources

• ConsumerMan: How to snag door-buster deals
• 10 Tips to Bag a Bargain on Black Friday
• Black Friday diehards will do just about anything for a bargain  
• Target, Wal-Mart, Kmart: Who has the best deal? 
• Tips on how not to bust your budget over the holidays 
• Gift cards are popular, but beware of fees on some

Herb Weisbaum is The ConsumerMan. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter or visit The ConsumerMan website.

Target is getting more aggressive with price matching this holiday.

By Raechel Conover, Cheapism.com

In the perennial war among discount superstores Wal-Mart, Target, and Kmart for shoppers' dollars, the edge goes to the retailer with the best and the most bargains. Cheapism found that Wal-Mart scores a clear win with the cheapest prices and largest selection and holds its own in other realms that frugal and savvy customers consider important -- convenience, a pleasant shopping environment, and products they consider a good value. Target is pressing in from a position of strength and Kmart, once the biggest of the three, no longer competes in any aspect we considered important.

For this in-depth comparison of Wal-Mart, Target, and Kmart, in the 50th anniversary year for each, Cheapism took a multi-pronged approach. We sent a researcher into each store to check prices and evaluate the shopping experience. We also conducted consumer and expert interviews, fielded a Facebook poll, and analyzed online reviews.

By the Numbers
On price alone, Wal-Mart leads the pack. When we totaled up a shopping cart of 30 identical and like items, including clothing, electronics, groceries, health and beauty supplies, home goods, and toys, the bill came to $1,776.15 at Wal-Mart, $1,866.10 at Target, and $2,092.82 at Kmart. What's more, Wal-Mart's price-matching policy doesn't require consumers to show a competitor's print ad in order to pay a lower price. Target is upping the ante this holiday season, however, by extending its own guarantee to online prices from Nov. 1 to Dec. 16.

Price Isn't Everything
While its prices are modestly higher on many items, "Tar-zhay" enjoys a reputation for relative quality and attention to design, particularly in areas such as apparel and home goods. Consumers gravitate to Target's clothing lines for their fashionable styling and durability. A Facebook poll respondent extols the retailer's other store brands, saying that the Up & Up baby products, for example, parallel pricier name brands. Wal-Mart carries a more basic selection of clothing, including heavy work clothes such as coveralls and thermal flannel shirts. Kmart showcases a couple of celebrity lines, but its offerings didn't register with the sources we queried.

Wal-Mart and Target appear to field plenty of employees on the shopping floor who were almost uniformly friendly and accommodating during our site visits. Kmart, by contrast, seemed woefully understaffed and the few employees present weren't all that willing to help out. One irritant common to all three discount retailers: long waits and other problems at checkout. We found that too few lanes were open to handle the crush of shoppers and numerous consumers posted negative experiences on our Facebook page.

The atmosphere varies by location, of course, but generally shoppers perceive Target as well-organized, tidy, and calm. Wal-Mart strikes some consumers as frenzied and crowded, a tad overwhelming, and occasionally in need of a quick cleanup, according to our research. Kmart disappoints with understocked shelves, messy displays, poor signage, and generally scruffy facilities.

Goods and Services
All three retailers stock a variety of products in numerous departments, from foodstuffs to office supplies to jewelry and more. For the most part, Target and especially Wal-Mart have become one-stop-shopping destinations. With thousands of stores scattered about the country, they are within convenient reach of many consumers. Target is expanding the grocery offerings in more than 200 stores this year but still has a ways to go to catch up with Wal-Mart, which includes full-service grocery departments complete with bakeries and delis in its 3,000 Wal-Mart Supercenters. Kmart stocks a more limited assortment of products -- particularly groceries -- in addition to charging higher prices.

Pharmacies at all three retailers' locations sell generic medications at low prices, although Kmart levies a $10 annual fee to obtain low-cost prescriptions. Some Target stores and many Wal-Mart locations contain health clinics and vision centers, as well. Kmart's health services don't extend much farther than flu shots and periodic "health events" such as blood pressure checks.

Wal-Mart and Target both feature photo processing. Wal-Mart provides the greatest variety of financial services, but all three retailers issue credit and/or debit cards. We found that an offer of 5% savings on all purchases and free shipping for online orders has made Target's REDcards a consumer favorite. Kmart stands out only for its well-known layaway program, for which it's waiving the service fee through Nov. 21. Wal-Mart supports the layaway option, as well, but only during the holiday shopping season.

The three stores also maintain extensive online inventories, and Wal-Mart's website includes a marketplace for third-party sellers. Wal-Mart.com offers free shipping to a local store and some items qualify for free home delivery if the order exceeds $45. Eligible items at Target must total $50 for free shipping. Kmart offers a fee-based membership for frequent shoppers that comes with free shipping on many items. In online reviews, consumers cite shipping-related problems with all three retailers.

Ranking the Discount Retailers
What factored into Cheapism's final verdict:

1. Wal-Mart

• Lowest prices, generous ad-matching policy
• Thousands of Supercenters with vast inventory, especially in grocery
• User-friendly website with myriad offerings and free Site to Store shipping
• Full selection of services, including photo developing, portrait studio, health clinics, vision centers, and holiday-season layaway

2. Target

• Fashionable clothing and home goods, reputation for quality
• Modest prices
• Clean stores with well-organized displays and helpful employees
• Calm atmosphere that makes for easy shopping

3. Kmart

• Highest prices
• Limited selection, especially in grocery
• Disgruntled and unavailable employees
• Empty shelves and unkempt displays

More from Cheapism:
Black Friday apps
Black Friday sales resources
Black Friday toy deals review

Target employees are seeing red after the retailer announced its stores will open at 9 p.m. on Thanksgiving night, cutting into holiday time for workers. An online petition asking Target to not open on Thanksgiving has over 179,000 signatures, and the number continues to rise.

Thanksgiving, a time for family, togetherness, turkey ... and standing for hours to service the needs of the relentless hordes of shoppers seeking the last Furby and deeply discounted HDTV sets. Indeed, Black Friday, which traditionally started in the pre-dawn hours of Friday, has seen its hours pushed back in recent years so that stores start offering savings on Thanksgiving night itself.

This year, Walmart, Toys R Us, Kmart, and Sears are all opening their doors at 8 pm Thursday. Together with Target, that's two to four hours before they kicked things off last year.

Reached for comment, Target spokesperson Molly Snyder told NBC News: "Target’s opening time was carefully evaluated with our guests, team and the business in mind. Across the country, team member preferences were considered in creating our store staffing schedules. Thanksgiving weekend is one of the busiest of the year, and we appreciate our Target team’s flexibility on this weekend and throughout the holiday season."

Synder told NBC News that Target employees always receive time-and-a-half pay for working national holidays. Workers clocking hours during Thanksgiving and Black Friday also receive additional pay bonuses, she said. Only one-third of Target's workforce is  scheduled to work on Thanksgiving. 

Some employees are "excited" for the chance to work extra hours, she said. "We’ve heard from many stores that they had more team members volunteer to work than they had available shifts," Snyder said.

But there are a few people out there, almost 200,000, who think that something with "Friday" in the name should actually start on Friday.

The Change.org user who created the petition, "C. Renee," is a self-described six-year employee of Target living in California. In the petition description the user wrote that having to work on Black Friday prevented him or her from visiting their family on the East Coast.

C. Renee wrote, "I currently work two jobs, substitute teaching and work Target at nights and weekends, so having Thanksgiving off really does give me that one day to relax and visit family I otherwise have no time to see." The user did not respond to an NBC News request for additional comment.

UPDATE: Author Charles Duhigg will join us for a live Web chat Wednesday at 9 a.m. ET. Questions for the author? Add them in the comments below. Click here for an email reminder before the chat begins.

By msnbc.com news services

News recently that Target had accidentally revealed a teen girl’s pregnancy to her father shows the extremes to which retailers are going to cash in on your everyday habits.

From brushing your teeth to shopping for groceries, your daily routines are now tracked by giant corporations in order to maximize their profits.

Charles Duhigg, author of “The Power of Habit,” appeared on TODAY Tuesday to describe how your habits -- and the information you pass on to retailers -- helps big retailers such as Starbucks to make money.

Ron Levine / Getty Images stock

The New York Times reports on what retailers know about your reproductive habits.

Your favorite big-box retailer may know you’re having a baby before you tell some of your friends and family.

New York Times reporter Charles Duhigg reports this week that Target has gone to great lengths to identify which of its customers are about to have a baby, based on the items they start putting in their cart.

The newspaper said the big-box retailer did a detailed analysis of its customers' shopping habits and found out which products they were more likely to buy as they were preparing for a new baby. That allowed them to get a head start on other retailers who may start marketing to Mom and Dad after the bundle of joy is born.

Why would that be important? Duhigg said new parents are a retailer’s dream customer because that’s a point in time when people’s shopping habits may change, so it’s a good time to snag that customer.

However, the reporter said the plan initially appeared to work too well. Duhigg recounts how one irate dad came into a local Target complaining because his teenager daughter had received coupons for baby products.

Turns out, what Dad didn’t know is that his daughter was pregnant.

Duhigg said the company changed its model somewhat, incorporating baby-related coupons in with other ones so it wasn’t quite as obvious that the parents-to-be were having their baby bump marketed to.

Duhigg notes that other companies also are taking great pains to understand their customers better, but the Times’ report focused heavily on Target.

Target told the Times that some of his reporting was inaccurate but declined to offer specific complaints.

In a statement e-mailed to msnbc.com, Target spokeswoman Stacia Smith said the company is focused on delivering great value and relevant offers, and also respecting shoppers' privacy and operating with integrity.

“Like many companies, we use research tools that help us understand guest shopping trends and preferences so that we can give our guests offers and promotions that are relevant to them. Guests are always welcome to opt out of our marketing programs,” Smith said in the statement.

Michael Nagle / Getty Images file

Shoppers look for bargains at Toys "R" Us last year. The big-box chain is opening at 9 p.m. on Thanksgiving this year.

Call it Black Friday fatigue.

With stores racing to open ever earlier on Thanksgiving (Wal-Mart’s doors will open at 10 p.m.!), a backlash is growing, with some retailers and analysts questioning the madness.

“The lunacy of opening at 12 midnight or even earlier on Thanksgiving evening shows that this whole Black Friday thing has run out of legs,” said IDC Retail Insights program director Greg Girard. “Black Friday is a race to the bottom, and it’s just become another ad avenue.”

Other analysts think this year's extended hours are meant to distract shoppers from a lack of exciting inventory.

“If you build it, they will come,” said NPD Group chief industry analyst Marshal Cohen, “but they won’t come in the dead of night. To me, you’re not going to sell more product just because you’re open more hours. It’s more of a smoke screen than it is a solution to the issue.”

This year, some stores are choosing not to take extreme measures to lure in bargain-hungry customers as they kick off a season that is expected to bring in about $465.6 billion in sales, a modest 2.8 percent increase over last year.

Sears, for one, has decided to pass on the trend for midnight openings set by big-box retailers including Best Buy, Kohls and Target. Toys 'R' Us is opening at 9 p.m. Thanksgiving night, an hour ahead of Wal-Mart.

Last year, Sears chose to keep its doors open on Thanksgiving from 7 a.m. until noon, with the idea that shoppers would come in early to rack up a few deals and then head home to their families for a midday meal.

But while the company did have good numbers that day, “The customer feedback was very clear,” said Sears spokesman Tom Aiello. “The customers liked the deals, but they didn’t like the idea of Thanksgiving shorted as a holiday.”

So the chain will revert to its original plan to open at 4 a.m. on Friday. “I think there’s a group of customers that don’t aspire to get up in the middle of the night,” Aiello said.

Retail chain JC Penneyalso decided to stick with a 4 a.m. opening time this year so employees can spend Thanksgiving with friends and family, according to a company spokesman.

Employees at Target and Best Buy have launched petition drives on the website change.org protesting the early openings. “A midnight opening robs the hourly and in-store salary workers of time off with their families on Thanksgiving Day,” wrote petition creator Anthony Hardwick, who identifies himself as a Target employee.

Some local retailers are still undecided on their Black Friday hours and will make last-minute decisions, according to Cohen.

Others are resisting the bonanza that is Black Friday altogether—or at least, they engage in more subtlety. Seattle-based retail chain Nordstrom has avoided opening its doors on Thanksgiving throughout the company’s history and in recent years has posted signs in its stores that read, “One holiday at a time.”

Nordstrom waits until the morning of Black Friday to unveil its Christmas decorations, though it will open doors early that morning in some locations.

“It’s not as in your face,” said Forrester vice president and senior analyst Sucharita Mulpuru, “but there’s a reason that Thanksgiving weekend that people work longer hours and [the stores] pull out all the stops as far as offering sales and promotions—because that’s the nature of that weekend.”

Analyst Greg Girard of IDC said Black Friday is virtually absent from the websites of brand-oriented stores like Gap, Nordstrom and Lord & Taylor.

"And they’re doing something much more surgical in that they’re moving towards direct communications, like text messaging to consumers," he said. "They’re getting to consumers with whom they have a longer lifetime relationship."

Nordstrom, like many higher-end stores, doesn’t rely as heavily on Black Friday to make or break its sales year. Black Friday “is among our most high volume days. But it isn’t our largest sales day of the year, unlike many retailers,” said Nordstrom spokesman Colin Johnson.