With Labor Day a fairly vivid recent memory and Halloween still an item floating on the horizon, it is hard to take the idea of getting ready for the holiday season lightly at this point. Sure, everyone’s perfect cousin on Facebook has already finished handcrafting all of their holiday gifts at this point and is already putting together their upcoming Instagram collections around them, but most people are not ready to think about Christmas yet — let alone prepare for it.
Target, however, is getting its holly and its jolly on early.
Target is first out of the gate this year with its holiday hiring plans, which include 70,000 seasonal store associates. Those workers are to be responsible for both getting the goods under the tree on time but also keeping the stores stocked, fulfilling the “mega-high volume” of online orders the chain expects during its busiest season of the year.
That is about flat with last year’s in-store hiring. Seeing a slight pickup is the number of workers for Target’s distribution and fulfillment facilities to about 7,500.
Target is also changing the “how” of holiday hiring, with its 1,800 stores nationwide participating in hiring events starting in October for mass interviews with candidates. As in past years, existing Target associates will get first crack at any extra holiday hours they want.
Also coming soon to Target as it gets ready for the big year-end ramp-up — updates to its Cartwheel app. Target is testing another expansion of its Cartwheel app with a new points-based rewards system called “Perks” in San Diego, Denver, Houston and St. Louis.
Perks will award customers 10 points for every dollar spent at Target, excluding CVS pharmacy purchases. At the 5,000-point level, customers can choose discounts ranging in value from $10–$20.
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