How We’re Moving Even Faster to Keep Up with Consumers
Scroll on social media ... see a cool product ... click ... buy. Social media has changed the way we shop. It’s a huge influence on purchase decisions — in fact, 85% of Gen Z and millennials expect to purchase a trending product within 24 hours of seeing it on social media.* So what’s Target doing to deliver? A lot. At our core, we’re a style- and design-led company that wins by bringing our guests a unique, trend-forward assortment they can’t find anywhere else. To move quickly, we’re doing everything from leveraging real-time guest insights and cutting up to 80% from production timelines to launching new GenAI trend intelligence tools.
“We’ve spent decades building and refining our industry-leading merchandising, trend, design and sourcing capabilities. And today we’re leaning into new ways to move even faster to meet the high expectations consumers have for our brand,” says Bill Foudy, senior vice president & president, owned brands, Target. “By using consumer insights and leveraging technology to rethink how we design, source and produce, we're building a more agile, responsive model so we can deliver the style, quality and value our guests expect from Target, exactly when they want it.”
Industry-leading trend forecasting
At Target, trend forecasting is one of our superpowers. We start by digging into insights to help us understand what matters most to our guests, then layer in cultural signals from runways, streetstyle, music, media and more. This approach lets us make smart design decisions right up to production, so our products reflect what guests want right now.
“Our hands-on approach helps us turn emerging ideas into guest-loved products, faster and more authentically than anyone else,” says Jenny Breeden, senior vice president, owned brand product design and packaging, Target.
In action:
- Holiday trend immersion: To shape this season’s apparel assortment, our merchandising teams explored European holiday markets for emerging influences like elevated coziness, tactile textures and heritage craftsmanship. These insights drove our holiday direction — vintage Nordic patterns, brushed yarn textures and layered warmth — across Target brands Universal Thread, A New Day, Goodfellow, and Cat & Jack. Within weeks, our design partners developed cashmere-like sweater prototypes reflecting these trends, accelerating timelines by months through close collaboration with vendors and yarn mills.
Faster-than-fast production
Instead of a one-size-fits-all, standard production schedule, we now use faster, more flexible models that help us bring trend-forward products to our guests quicker than ever. Within apparel & accessories, we’ve introduced flexible schedules called “speed tracks” that reduce up to 80% from the design process timeline.
Our fastest go-to-market speed business model — now used across brands like A New Day, Universal Thread, Wild Fable and Shade & Shore — helps us deliver fresh, trend-right styles in close partnership with our vendor partners, tailored for Target.com and driven by what guests are loving in real time.
In action:
- Wild Fable “oversized perfect hoodie”: Based on market and college campus visits, our teams noticed interest in fleece and leisure dressing. We worked with vendor partners to develop an oversized hooded sweatshirt, turning around samples in just one week. We finalized hoodie graphics and colors just weeks before set, cutting 17 weeks from our typical timeline and ensuring the style was available for the holiday season.
- Suede layers and faux leather: Based on trend signals from search and social media, we expanded our faux suede assortment with new styles like bombers and dresses. We brought this expanded assortment to market in just seven weeks — tripling our suede assortment in time for the holiday season.
Trend-right timing
Our flexible production process also allows us to be more responsive to consumer trends since we manage the raw materials (like fabrics and denim), production capacity and lead times to get the right items to our guests at the right time.
In action:
- Universal Thread denim: When baggy leopard-print jeans started trending last year we tapped into our denim reserves and quickly launched a new style — cutting lead times by 25% and getting the look to guests while it was still hot. The new style drove millions in incremental sales.
- All in Motion soft fabric: As demand grew for our ultra-soft leggings last year, we used our existing fabric supply and vendor partnerships to expand into new styles and silhouettes, getting them to market in just a few months. The production of 8 million additional units led to over $100 million in additional sales.
Tech that keeps us ahead of the trends
To complement the expertise of our best-in-class design team, we’re investing in cutting-edge tools to bring trend-right products to guests faster than ever.
- Target Trend Brain: Our new, proprietary GenAI-powered trend intelligence platform can process massive volumes of visual and written trend data, providing insights that are specific to Target’s owned brands. Manual work that used to take weeks can happen in hours. One early win? After Target Trend Brain confirmed greens, berries and blues as must-have colors for fall, we incorporated them into our fall collection. Now we’re expanding Target Trend Brain across more categories and exploring its use in home and other areas.
- 3D design capabilities: We use 3D modeling across nearly every owned brand category to design, test and refine products virtually — cutting weeks of development time and reducing the need to create product samples.
Always ahead of what’s next
At Target, staying ahead of trends isn’t a one-and-done moment — it’s a constant evolution. With industry-leading trend forecasting, faster production and cutting-edge tech, we’re built to deliver in real time. And as shopping habits continue to shift, we’ll keep innovating to meet the moment, bringing trend-right, guest-loved products to Target.com and stores faster than ever.
* Source: HubSpot Consumer Trends Report, 2024
