Dive Brief:
- Kicking off the new year with a focus on customers’ health goals, Target is growing its wellness assortment by 30%, per a Wednesday press release.
- The mass retailer’s merchandise expansion includes a focus on trending areas such as protein products, nonalcoholic beverages, performance apparel and more. Thousands of products are priced under $10.
- The company is currently holding a wellness week savings event through Saturday. Target will also hold wellness events in stores nationwide on Saturday and Jan. 17, featuring giveaways and product samples. Additionally, Target refreshed its digital “Wellness Hub” with personalized recommendations and revamped its online "Eat Well Your Way" experience to make it easier for customers to shop by dietary preferences.
Dive Insight:
As it works to fix declining sales and traffic, Target is growing its wellness assortment again. The mass retailer expanded its offerings in the category at the beginning of 2025 with 2,000 new products.
"About 70% of guests are already shopping wellness at Target and right in time for the new year, we're bringing them even more newness and value by adding some of the most trusted, relevant and inspiring brands across our assortment," Target’s Chief Merchandising Officer of Food, Essentials and Beauty Lisa Roath said in a statement. "Our goal is to make wellness really accessible – fun, easy, affordable and personalized – so consumers can focus on building routines that help them look and feel their best."
The wellness expansion feeds into Target’s larger turnaround goals, which include a focus on revamping its merchandise with new and more exclusive products, all while developing the perception of value for consumers.
“We're focused on improving performance, particularly in discretionary categories, listening closely to our guests and moving with greater agility to bring them the newness and affordability they expect from Target,” Chief Commercial Officer Rick Gomez told analysts on a third quarter earnings call in November.
Target announced it would invest an additional $1 billion into the business in 2026, putting its total expected capital expenditure at about $5 billion. Its Q3 net sales declined 1.5% year over year to $25.3 billion and comparable sales dropped 2.7%.
As Target expands its wellness merchandise, other mass retailers such as Ulta Beauty are also focused on the category.
The beauty retailer’s CEO in August revealed on an earnings call that it expanded its in-store dedicated wellness space to an additional 370 stores in the footprint, with another 50 in the works. Ulta debuted “The Wellness Shop” in 2021 and expanded it to the majority of its stores in 2023.
“We have about 150 brands and 700 SKUs with this focus on self-care, but we do recognize this wellness market is large and growing, and it’s really driven by consumer engagement and product innovation,” CEO Kecia Steelman said on the August call with analysts. “It’s growing faster than beauty right now, but it’s complex and it’s personal.”
As for Target, the retailer's announcement noted that it's adding 1,000 new apparel and accessories throughout the year from brands such as its athletic private labels All in Motion and JoyLab. The mass retailer also expects to introduce new products in 2026 across its several owned brands and exclusive partnerships.
Target and Ulta in 2025 announced they would dissolve their beauty partnership this August. The retailers had launched Ulta Beauty at Target shop-in-shops about five years ago.
