Bullseye Bodegas: Target Markets Good Design at Low Prices

The past four days at four sites around Manhattan, Target opened their Bullseye Bodegas, four popup shops to feature the products from its 22 designer partnerships. Each store featured an edited selection of fashion, accessories, beauty, and home products all with an average price of $25.00. A number of the collections like Anya Hindmarch’s handbags are being previewed at the Bodegas before they go on sale at Target stores later this fall. Visiting the four sites, we noticed each was busy, even early in the morning.

The obvious route might have been to open some sleek white minimal shops and cater to the fashion crowd wrapping up fashion week. But Target remained true to its design for all mantra and created something completely different. The choice of the bodega theme is one that most every New Yorker can identify with. Bodegas or small grocery stores, are nearly everywhere in the city. They typically aren’t glamorous but have the essentials.  Days before the openings last week, ads for the bodegas started to appear everywhere in the city. The ads used bold cut and paste style graphics along with the famous bullseye logo.

At each of the stores, bold yellow,red and black graphics defined the space. Outside, vinyl signs were attached to the windows and a random assortment of paper signs featured the designers. Inside large panels of common products like cereal and detergent were mounted to walls and fixtures. Products were displayed in an interesting mix of fixtures. Common chrome wire rack held apparel and accessories. Actual deli cases contained the beauty and home products. Each of the designers had small information cards adjacent to their collections. Target also used stock price cards to hand write promotional messages in marker.

More photos of each of the four stores are available here.