MINNEAPOLIS — Target customers will soon see changes on the retailer’s shelves, as the company tries to woo back shoppers during a turnaround effort that has started to catch Wall Street’s eye.

Among those shifts, Target will add more fresh and trendy groceries, a dedicated display for higher-end makeup and a larger array of merchandise for sports fans.

At the big-box retailer’s Minneapolis headquarters on Tuesday, Target’s merchandising leaders previewed the company’s ambitious plans to overhaul key categories, including home and apparel, which have posted year over year sales declines. The company held an investor meeting to share its holiday-quarter results and its turnaround strategy for this year, which hinges in part on regaining its reputation for stylish and unique items.

CEO Michael Fiddelke, a Target veteran who stepped into the top role on Feb. 1, told investors on Tuesday that the company is making changes that “don’t happen overnight.” But, he added, they include many tweaks that customers “will see and feel right away.”

“If I were to step back and draw a heat map of the entire store highlighting where we’re making changes this year, you’d see more change to what we sell and how we sell it than you’ve seen in a decade,” he said.

The success of Target’s merchandise makeover will help determine whether the company meets its sales and earnings outlook for the current year and whether it can reverse four consecutive quarters of declining customer traffic. The company’s revenue fell slightly in fiscal 2025 and has been stagnant for four years.

Target said Tuesday that it expects net sales for the current fiscal year to rise about 2% compared with the previous year and anticipates that sales will grow in every quarter of the year.

Wall Street had a positive early read on Target’s turnaround progress: the company’s stock climbed more than 6% on Tuesday, and was trading higher on Wednesday.

Here’s a closer look at Target’s merchandising changes:

Yet for many customers, Target is a destination for buying just a few grocery items rather than a fuller basket of food for the week. Plus, the company’s competition has grown fiercer — not only from the nation’s largest grocer by revenue, Walmart, but also from Amazon and fast-expanding discounter Aldi.

“We don’t want food to just be a business that guests are shopping while they’re at Target,” he said. “But increasingly, we want to be a business that is why guests are at Target.”

He said Target is “trying to carve our own lane with our assortment strategy” rather than copy the grocers down the street.

Going forward, Target will expand the square footage it devotes to grocery as it remodels stores and builds new ones, Conlin said. In over half of the stores that the company remodels, Target will double the square footage for fresh foods like fruits, vegetables and meats, he added.

The company also plans to add more brands that shoppers haven’t yet discovered and lean on seasonal items and private brands. To stand out from competitors, Target is going to ramp up the amount of new items by up to 50% in key categories like snacks and dry groceries, Conlin said.

But he acknowledged a challenge that has tripped up Target in recent years, which it’s tried to fix by owning its supply chain and opening a new facility in Colorado in the next year.

“None of this comes to light if we’re not in stock for our guests,” he said.

He also declined to share a key detail about some items and brands that Target is adding: Their price points.

In many of Target’s stores, customers buy lip gloss and other items from Ulta Beauty. That will change in August, after the two brands announced the end of a deal that brought the mini beauty shops to nearly a third of Target’s big-box stores. 

On Tuesday, Target said it plans to give its own beauty assortment a glow up. This fall, it will open what it is dubbing its Beauty Studio in more than 600 stores and online, said Amanda Nusz, senior vice president of merchandising for essentials and beauty at Target.

Beauty Studio will replace Ulta Beauty at Target. It will be a dedicated shop within the store with prestige beauty brands, elevated lighting, enhanced service and a specific loyalty program tied to beauty, Nusz said. In renderings, the beauty shop looks similar to Ulta Beauty at Target, but without the beauty retailer’s branding. 

Nusz declined to share the national brands that the Beauty Studio will carry and if it will offer some of the same brands sold by Ulta Beauty and other competitors like Sephora.

Beauty “has been one of the strongest growth engines for Target,” Nusz said. She said it was also the top growth category for Target’s curbside pickup service, Drive Up, and in-store pickup of online orders in the fourth quarter. A bonus for Target: it tends to draw in younger shoppers.

The segment’s sales were roughly flat year over year in the most recent fiscal year, but accounted for about 13% of Target’s overall net sales for the period.

Along with rolling out Beauty Studio, Nusz said Target will add more well-recognized national brands like sunscreen brand Supergoop, lean into trends like Korean beauty and invest more in men’s beauty, such as grooming and fragrance items.

Target used to be known for its fashion-forward yet affordable throw pillows, lamps, bedding and other home decor. The category, however, is now one of the retailer’s weaknesses — particularly as it competes with digital players like Wayfair, big-box competitors like Walmart and Costco, off-price chains like TJX‘s HomeGoods and specialty players like Crate & Barrel or Pottery Barn.

Sales in the home furnishings and decor category totaled $15.61 billion in the most recent fiscal year, sinking by nearly 7% year over year. That’s a deeper sales drop than in any of Target’s other key merchandise categories.

The big-box retailer is working to become a destination for the category again, said Mara Sirhal, senior vice president of merchandising for home, who stepped into the role about three months ago.

“Our home business has not delivered to its potential, point blank,” she said. “The industry grew. Target home underperformed. We lost meaningful share over the last two years and our authority and style inspiration has weakened. That is on us.”

Among the problems, she said Target “lost clarity in our point of view,” with a blander assortment rather than a stylish, eye-catching one.

Sales of home goods at Target have also been hurt by economic factors, including higher interest rates and pricier homes in the U.S., which have led to a much older first-time homebuyer, she said.

Starting in June, Target will rebuild the category as part of a multi-year turnaround effort, she said. One of its first moves this summer will be redoing about 75% of its assortment in decorative home, which includes items like candlesticks, throw pillows and greenery. By the fall, she said three-quarters of its bedding assortment will be reinvented. And next year, she said, Target will overhaul its kitchen and dining merchandise.

It won’t just be the products changing, she said. Shoppers should expect to see new fixtures in stores, too, such as elevated wood displays. It will also use its third-party marketplace, Target Plus, to sell large items that are easier to carry online, such as rugs, mattresses and furniture, she said.