Target // Home Innovation

When I moved over from Apparel + Accessories to the Home + Housewares businesses in 2022, I became the Visual Merchandising Business Partner for the Home Innovation Flat. This is the space in a Target store that is known also as the Home Gateway. An open floorpad with moveable fixtures to curate Home Decor moments + be disruptive from the many Gondola runs of other category merchandised Home products. The Home Innovation Flat, also known as the HI Flat, is a space that combines item types such as: Home Decor, Wall Art, Fragrance, Toss, Throw, Storage, + Greenery. This space also curates moments for multiple brands. The primary brand in the space is Threshold Home, the secondary brand in the space is the Partnership brand Studio McGee for Threshold. In addition to these 2 brands, the space also holds Room Essentials items at times, as well as other brand partnerships such as Pura, and additional seasonal brands from time to time. As the VM BP in the space, I was responsible for all CFT interactions to understand every nuance within each category playing in the space for every cycle. Different times of year equated to different categories gaining or losing space, as needed, based on the seasonal storytelling needs, and I was the main cross functional partner to help the teams negotiate the space appropriately and understand overall capacity needs. In addition, I was responsible for doing all of the hands-on Merchandising + builds for each cycle, as well as all version translations and helping to influence the team to right-size assortments as space loss occurred in different version builds. After my 1st year on the business, I was promoted to Manager, and that promotion did come with category changes. So, while I was only a VM BP on this business for 1 year, I did lean into teaching + training my back fill, stepping up to help with builds during the change-over + transition period, and became a liaison to the business for my entire time on the Home team (2022-2025) due to the great relationship building I was able to accomplish during my year on the business + due to additional team turnover for the VM BP role after I moved roles. I was able to remain the constant fill-in support + teacher/ trainer for all new VM BPs on the business. In addition, Back-to-College is the biggest cycle for the HI Flat, as it comes with many tiering complexities and a large increase in build versions needed, so I also lead the Back-to-College build and tiering work the following 2 years (2024 + 2025) to help with streamlining those complexities + ensuring consistency in the version to version approach.

Cyclical Work …

My work on the Home Innovation Flat, from 2022 to 2023, allowed me to explore the full range of seasons within Home Decor: rounding out a full year of transitions that included Spring Refreshes, Summer Initiatives, Back-to-College Chaos, Halloween Shop-in-shops, Fall Favorites, Holiday Nostalgia, Peak-Holiday Drive-time Spikes, + a New Year Color Revival. The HI Flat was a place for innovation, which allowed for fixture blocking exercises to enhance discovery + take guests on a journey throughout the space. Getting a chance to evolve the fixture blocking process for the HI Flat and open the team’s eyes up to new ways of creating storytelling moments and shop-in-shop setups on the floorpad was exhilarating! Below you will see aerial views of each cycle’s fixture block adjustments, as well as close-up shops of the different fixtures + zones within the floor. Over the course of the year within this space, I am proud of the work that was done with the merchant team to continue to refine their assortment + lean into fewer, deeper, bolder buys, which in-turn cleaned up the Visual Merchandising I was able to do, to communicate clearer stories to the guest. I was also able to explore brand partnerships and further push my relationship with the SEM (store experience marketing) team with how we show up for in-store marketing + specialty item containment needed for these unique moments. Further exploration came with testing the waters of what a larger cross-merchandised shop could look like, pulling other categories that don’t typically land in this space (i.e. Kitchen) and setting them with like-minded design aesthetic decor items, to fully amplify seasonal projections and create one-stop-shops for hosting + entertaining. In addition, across all cycles, creating more of a balance between curated trend + storytelling moments with bold + dominant category statements in the space, allowed for additional ease to the guest’s shopping journey. This also allowed for more value amplification, in-turn increasing sales + productivity for the shop in totality.

2023:

spring: decor

store execution:

summer: decor + Pura collaboration

store execution:

fall: decor + halloween

store execution:

holiday: decor + gifting

store execution:

2024:

spring: decor + Studio McGee

store execution:

Back-to-College …

As mentioned above, Back-to-College is peak season for the Home Innovation space at Target. This set does almost as much money for Target as Holiday. Because of this, getting the Back-to-College experience right is critical! Every year we take hindsighting + store team feedback very serious, to ensure we are making the appropriate adjustments to not only improve overall guest experience year to year, but also keep in mind store team ease of execution. In doing this, the strategy every year has shifted slightly to accommodate these changing needs. With this set, also comes a lot of complexities as it relates to store type + tiering. Recognizing that not all store locations sit in heavily saturated college locations lead to the need for structuring our approach in a 4 tier manner.

Tier 1 stores are highly penetrated and top volume Back-to-College locations, these stores need maximum capacity on all items and big blow-out Back-to-College shops to nail that high volume need. In addition, at this time the back-to-college guest becomes the priority + the everyday Home Decor assortment takes a back seat/marks down for the timeframe. Tier 2 stores are still highly important Back-to-College stores, needing the full assortment + decent quantities of all items to fulfill the needs, but they are not necessarily located on a campus or adjacent to one, making them more of a mid-volume college grouping of doors. These stores also still need to service the everyday Home Decor guests, so the priority becomes split in these doors to register both types of assortments. Tier 3 stores are the low volume Back-to-College doors, they still need assortment offerings, but they do not push through tons of volume nor do they need even the full assortment. These stores have a higher penetration of the everyday Home Decor guest, so back-to-college takes the secondary importance seat in these doors. Tier 4 stores are the ones with no need for Back-to-College assortment, these stores are nowhere near campuses + only need to service that everyday Home Decor guest. Some of the Back-to-College bulk-out items are applicable to the everyday guest, so these stores only receive limited bulk-out assortment items (i.e. hangers, laundry baskets, etc) and they do not receive the trend Back-to-College specific items.

Each of these tiers having different guest experience needs, means different assortment structures and shop builds required. Tier 1 stores get 2 full Back-to-College shops: the HI Flat gets taken over to house the “trend” or “fashion” BTC items, and the Mini Seasonal shop at the back of the store becomes the bulk-out hub for all those “dorm essential” items. Tier 2 stores get all of the same items/ assortment as Tier 1 stores, however, they do not take up 2 shops: all of this product needs to live within 1 space, and that is typically the Mini Seasonal shop. This is so the HI Flat can remain an everyday Home Decor destination for these guests. Tier 3 stores also set both assortment needs: fashion trend items + bulk-out dorm essentials in 1 shop, within Mini Seasonal, however, these stores get less of the trend projection items and more of the bulk-out essentials. They also set the same everyday Home Decor shop on the HI Flat as Tier 2 doors. Since Tier 4 stores receive minimal Back-to-College items, and everything they receive is duplicative of in-line essential items, there is no need for a Back-to-College shop in these doors. Therefore you will not see any examples of Tier 4 below.

The transition of Back-to-College work has evolved over the past few years that I’ve been a part of this business, and it is exciting to see the Merchant team finally leaning into bigger curations + bolder storytelling moments to better drive dorm aesthetic traffic. Below you will see 2023 + 2024 having similar approaches in how these Back-to-College Tiers + Shops came to life, working with what we knew worked, and making subtle adjusts to the spaces to adjust from feedback and better the experience, while continuing to project value + trend. However, in 2025, further conceptualizing of “what could be” if we stepped away from what we’ve done before + lean further into how these shops could come to life differently, further providing the guest what they’ve been asking us for: help curating + more inspiration of how to pull a full dorm room together, allowed us to unlock storytelling for this cycle in a bigger way! Finally leaning into the Back-to-College space being the one-stop-shop the guest needs it to be. Because I was working as a liaison in this space, and helping the team with workload vs. fully owning Back-to-College for the 2025 builds, I managed + lead the work for Mini Seasonal and did all of the Merchandising for those spaces, but did not own the Merchandising of the Tier 1 build, so that Tier is not shown below. What you will see are all of the spaces + builds that I did the product placement, visual curations, + merchandising decisions for, as well as SEM influencing + containment construction partnering.

2023:

tier 1: dorm shop: home innovation flat