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Target operates 2,019 stores, and the red bullseye has long stood for affordable style and an easy shopping trip. Reddit threads, customer satisfaction surveys, and the retailer’s own corporate memos now describe a different experience. Shoppers keep returning to ten specific frustrations, and several of them trace back to changes Target made in 2025. The first took away a perk that bargain hunters had counted on for 12 years.
Since 2013, a Target shopper who spotted the same item cheaper at Amazon or Walmart could ask for the difference back within 14 days. On July 28, 2025, Target ended that offer. The decision followed a quarter in which sales at established stores fell 3.8%, and shares had slid about 25% for the year. Best Buy and Home Depot still offer some form of competitor price matching. Target gave its own explanation for the change.
A Target spokesperson told Retail Dive that guests “overwhelmingly price match Target and not other retailers.” Today’s policy covers identical items listed for less on Target.com or through a Target Circle deal, and shoppers must ask within 14 days. Clearance and closeout items are excluded. A lower price at a different Target store does not count, and coupons cannot be stacked on a match. Shoppers who used Amazon and Walmart as their benchmark must now run those comparisons alone.
Complaints about price dominate Reddit threads on the chain. One user claimed a bag of trail mix sells for $8 at Target and $1.99 at Walmart, and said many name brands cost roughly double what Walmart or Kroger charge. That comparison is a single shopper’s claim and sits at the extreme end. Independent checks in 2026 still land on the same side, with Walmart posting the lower total on everyday groceries. One local TV station tracks the gap every week.
Each Wednesday, Denver7 prices nine grocery essentials at four Denver-area stores. On Feb. 4, 2026, the basket totaled $24.53 at Walmart and $27.21 at Target, a gap of roughly 11%. Target did finish ahead of Safeway and King Soopers that week, and the company says it has lowered prices on more than 10,000 items over the past year. Walmart still held first place. Shoppers say the bigger damage comes from everything else that lands in the cart.
One Reddit user wrote that Target charges extra for convenience and that the same product costs less elsewhere. Another said a store once seen as a good value has become too expensive for their budget. Convenience services carry fees of their own. Target Circle 360, the chain’s paid membership for same-day delivery and free shipping, costs $99 a year, or $49 for holders of a Target Circle Card. Target’s financial results show how fast that membership money is growing.
In the fourth quarter of 2025, Target’s non-merchandise sales climbed more than 25%, and membership revenue more than doubled. Advertising income from Roundel and the company’s online marketplace also grew, and Target expected those higher-margin streams to add more than a percentage point of growth in 2026. Non-merchandise sales then rose 20.1% in the quarter that ended Aug. 1. Shoppers say the bakery aisle is where the value breaks down.
A shopper on Reddit described the grocery section as constantly depleted and said the bakery never has stock, whichever day they visit. Target management has heard similar complaints. In February 2026, the company shifted money into store payroll after shoppers raised concerns about out-of-stock items, messy shelves and long checkout lines. Almost all of Target’s online orders are filled inside its stores. Questions about empty shelves have followed the retailer for far longer than one year.
Bloomberg reported in 2015 that then-CEO Brian Cornell told analysts in-stocks had reached “unacceptable levels” that year and that the supply chain had been stretched beyond its capabilities. An earlier Star Tribune report, citing Kantar Retail, found Target replaced its inventory 6.4 times in 2012, versus 8.3 times at Amazon and Walmart. Because shoppers buy milk and bread far more often than clothes, thin stock shows up fastest in the food aisles. Cluttered floors compound the problem.
A Reddit user said messy stores have become the rule at most Target locations over the past year and a half. NBC News reported in February 2026 that customers voiced frustration over cluttered stores and inconsistent merchandise that strayed from the retailer’s polished, affordable-chic identity. Target launched a training program called 10-4 last year, asking employees to smile and make eye contact within 10 feet of customers. Shoppers say the clutter peaks at one particular time of day.
Some Target locations have aisles tight enough that peak hours leave walkways congested, according to complaints on Reddit. One shopper asked other customers whether anyone had found times when the store runs quieter. Target fills online orders from its stores, so employees picking those orders share the floor with shoppers, and same-day delivery grew more than 25% in the quarter that ended Aug. 1. Once the cart is full, the front of the store brings its own wait.
In early 2024, Fast Company reported employees saying Target was cutting self-checkout hours. At one store, two open registers frequently ran five to 10 shoppers deep, according to an employee. Target had already limited many self-checkout lanes to 10 items or fewer. A worker on Reddit described short staffing so severe that colleagues constantly called for backup while their own tasks stalled. Target’s 2026 response to the staffing complaints came with layoffs attached.
On Feb. 9, 2026, Target told employees it would eliminate about 500 roles, roughly 400 in its supply chain and 100 at the district level, and redirect the savings into store labor and guest experience training. Starting pay stays between $15 and $24 an hour depending on location. One Reddit commenter who works at Target said training lasted about two days before they were left alone on the floor. Shoppers who skip the lines and order online report a different set of problems.
A Reddit user said Target’s website had caused trouble for months, close to a year by their count, even after multiple calls, chats with customer service and screenshots of the problems. The frustration reaches beyond one account. During a holiday shopping rush, shoppers reported being charged for orders that never produced a confirmation, and Target acknowledged “intermittent issues” with its digital experience. An annual survey now puts a score on how customers rate Target’s online side.
The American Customer Satisfaction Index’s 2026 retail study gave online retailers an average score of 79 out of 100. Target landed at 75, behind Walmart at 77, Costco and Macy’s at 79, and the top trio of Amazon, Chewy and Nordstrom at 82. Home Depot matched Target’s 75, while Bed Bath & Beyond, Lowe’s and Temu trailed at 74. Clothing shoppers have posted their own ratings on Target.com, and some of them are low.
Target’s annual filing says roughly 30% of its merchandise sales come from owned and exclusive brands such as Universal Thread, A New Day and Wild Fable. Reddit shoppers say business attire in particular felt cheap and rough. Customer reviews for Universal Thread’s Leisure Studio joggers on Target.com are mixed, with some five-star ratings alongside scores as low as 1 out of 5 and a warning that the fleece shrinks a lot. Target’s own executives have acknowledged a weak spot in apparel.
At a March 2026 investor event, Target said it would cut 10% of its bedding products to sharpen its style focus, and an apparel executive named moving faster on trends as a top priority. CEO Michael Fiddelke unveiled a $6 billion plan that month to reverse three straight years of sales declines. Apparel and accessories still brought in $4.09 billion in the quarter that ended Aug. 1. Shoppers who care about sustainability have raised a different complaint about what Target puts on and around its products.
A Reddit shopper asked whether others had struggled lately to find eco-friendly or reusable products at Target. The chain does sell a Target Zero collection with thousands of items built around reusable, compostable or recycled packaging, yet its sustainability report shows little movement. Recycled content in its plastic shopping bags sat at 40% in each of the last three fiscal years. Target set a deadline for its packaging promises in 2021, and that deadline passed in 2025.
Target had pledged that all of its owned-brand packaging would be recyclable, compostable or reusable by 2025. Its 2026 sustainability report shows only 41% of owned-brand packaging met those circularity criteria in fiscal 2025, unchanged from 2024 and up from 39% in 2023. Target missed the goal and extended the deadline to 2035. Walmart also struggled with its 2025 private label packaging targets. The same report delayed Target’s emissions-reduction targets as well.
Target’s results show a retailer in recovery: comparable sales rose 3.8% in the quarter that ended Aug. 1, 2026, and the company says it has cut prices on more than 10,000 items. Shoppers still describe baskets that cost more than at Walmart, a price match limited to Target’s own listings, and gaps in stock, service, apparel and packaging. Those who compare prices first and use Circle deals can still come out ahead. Everyone else pays a premium for flaws that are now well documented.
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