Target Trims Innovation Agenda Due to Slowdown

Target Corp. is slowing “big portions of its innovation agenda” following declining sales and traffic during the holiday period, according to Minnesota's Star Tribune.

So far, the Minneapolis-based mass merchandiser has shut down its “secretive” ecommerce startup Goldfish, which was greenlit a year ago; its plans to build a “robot-infused store of the future”; and a number of smaller projects, the Star Tribune reported. Target made the cuts to refocus efforts on supporting its core business and “delivering against” its “strategic priorities,” a company representative told the newspaper.

Target decided to slow down projects a couple of weeks after issuing a pre-earnings announcement that holiday sales and profits were “weaker than anticipated,” with November and December comps falling 1.3 percent, the Star Tribune said. Although it's not known what other projects Target plans to cut, its Techstars accelerator program doesn't appear to be one of them, as the “boot camp for retail-focused startups” is now accepting applications for its second class, to begin this summer.