If the holiday shopping season is a retailer’s final exam every year, back to school are the midterms. For Target, this year’s test is a big one.
Success depends on getting the basics right: exciting merchandise, fully stocked stores and competitive prices. These are all areas where Target has stumbled in recent years.
This year’s season is also an early read on CEO Michael Fiddelke’s turnaround plan. He took over earlier this year after a difficult period for Target, which faced boycotts in 2025 after phasing out several diversity, equality and inclusivity initiatives. Last week, it faced with new criticism about a children’s Halloween costume that resembles racist minstrel imagery; The target drew it and apologized.
To see how Target is trying to make it happen, Business Insider visited a few stores in Madison, Wisconsin with Chief Store Officer Adrienne Costanzo.
Costanzo chats with store manager Ben Cossack before her walkthrough. Dominick Reuter/Business Insider
Costanzo is a 22-year veteran of Target and has held numerous positions in HR and store operations. Her appointment to her current role took place in February 2025, approximately six months before Fiddelke was announced as CEO. She is now responsible for more than 350,000 employees in 2,000 stores in all 50 US states.
This month Costanzo logged in They’re putting in serious mileage to educate shoppers, employees and store managers about what is and isn’t in their stores when they go back to school.
“This is the 16th state in three weeks of visits,” she said while in Madison. “I’ve been to Michigan, I’ve been to Nebraska, I mean, I’ve been everywhere.”
On the Saturday of this visit, elementary school parents were preparing for the first day of classes, and University of Wisconsin students were decorating their apartments. The moves to the student house would take place in a week, and both locations were doing good business.
Shoppers fill the aisle of a Target store near the University of Wisconsin. Dominick Reuter/Business Insider
Unlike the holidays, different school seasons peak at different times, creating all kinds of complexities for inventory planning and staffing, Fiddelke told investors during a second-quarter earnings call.
“The foot traffic is incredible – the parents and students,” Costanzo said of her multi-state tour.
Her visits include conversations with shoppers who express relief over Target’s improved inventory rates and positive impressions of partnerships with brands like LoveShackFancy and Hollister, she said. It’s a return to the kind of merchandising that draws customers into stores and entices them to add unexpected finds to an already full shopping cart.
During the tours, Costanzo spoke with store managers about everything from their hiring and training efforts in previous months to a new trailer loading strategy that will help store employees get merchandise onto shelves faster.
Costanzo talks to employees in the warehouse. Dominick Reuter/Business Insider
Even with increased traffic, both locations were better stocked than previous Business Insider visits, and there were no inventory carts in the aisles. (Costanzo’s visit was announced in advance.)
A notable exception to the fully stocked shelves was a section reserved for Pokémon, which the store manager said sold out after more than 50 customers waited in line for the merchandise to drop.
“You can’t sell air,” Costanzo said, explaining to store leaders that her team is working on a solution to ensure that important shelf space does not sit idle while suppliers work to meet high demand.
Customers shop at a Target store near the University of Wisconsin. Dominick Reuter/Business Insider
While this visit involved a bit of an entourage, Costanzo said she also visits stores incognito, giving her more insight into how Target’s teams are performing.
One such visit, she said, showed that Target still has work to do in terms of training and balancing the responsibilities of store teams during busy times like these.
“Our team puts their heads down and does the work,” she said. “I didn’t experience a lot of eye contact and smiles. I didn’t experience as much as I would have liked when it came to attention on the control lanes.”
“I want us to be at our best when we’re working on the total experience,” she added.
Do you have a tip? Contact this reporter by email at dreuter@businessinsider.com or text/call/signal at 646-768-4750. Use a personal email address, a non-real Wi-Fi network, and a non-work device; here’s our guide to that share information securely.
