Target effectively calls Zellers customers old and cheap

Target’s arrival in Canada next year isn’t all sunshine and roses (or, rather, designer collaborations and cute doggie mascots). The company is embroiled in a controversy over its decision not to keep 10,000 employees who work in the Zellers locations it’s taking over—just this morning, workers and union leaders demonstrated outside Target’s Canadian headquarters in Mississauga. Target’s position is that it acquired the Zellers stores in a real estate transaction, plain and simple, and that it’s in no way a successor to Zellers (a designation that would require it to retain some union employees). In fact, the company issued a statement baldly pronouncing that “Zellers attracts a different customer base, older and more likely to be ‘empty nesters,’’’ who “spend significantly less per visit than a Target guest.” So, basically, Zellers customers are neither young enough nor rich enough for the American company. Ouch. [Huffington Post]