Target Pours Money Into Snazzy Displays, and It's Working

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Target's CEO Brian Cornell set about giving the big box's merchandise selection an overhaul when he signed on, and that includes how product is displayed. Now Cornell says that Target customers are responding to the brand's new styling efforts for its beauty, home, and apparel aisles, according to Fortune.

"We realized we were making them [customers] work too hard," Cornell told the audience at the WWD Apparel and Retail CEO Summit in New York on Tuesday, Fortune reports. "When you walked into our stores to browse, all you saw were a sea of racks or a string of search results. So we owed our customer a better presentation."

Cornell backed up his statement: he said that sales of items worn by mannequins have increased by 30% and that housewares items displayed in vignettes sell three or four times better than average home products. Of Target's nearly 1,800 stores, nearly 1,400 display mannequins in the apparel departments, while fancy "home innovation" displays of items in dining room or kitchen settings are headed to the aisles of 262 Target stores next month.

To make the stores look even better, Target is on a hiring spree. The brand plans to hire 1,400 visual merchandising experts by the end of the year.