There\u2019s no room for price gouging in a ultra-competitive business like retail, Target CEO Brian Cornell said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
In an interview on CNBC\u2019s \u201cSquawk Box,\u201d the retail chief disputed campaign talking points accusing grocers of inflating prices. He said retailers have to be responsive to customers or risk losing business.<\/p>\n
He was asked by CNBC\u2019s Joe Kernen, who referred to comments by Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris and asked if Target or its competitors ever benefit from price gouging. Harris last week proposed the first-ever federal ban on \u201ccorporate price-gouging in the food and grocery industries,\u201d saying some companies are charging excessively and fueling household inflation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re in a penny business,\u201d Cornell responded, noting the small profit margins in the retail industry. He described the many places that customers can turn to check for lower prices or to find merchandise elsewhere, from going to stores to browsing on their phones to compare the prices of a gallon of milk at different retailers.<\/p>\n
Target\u2019s retail chief made the comments after the discounter beat Wall Street\u2019s expectations for earnings and revenue on Wednesday, but struck a cautious note with its full-year guidance. It said it expects comparable sales, which take out the impact of store openings and closures, to be on the lower side of its range of flat to up 2%. Yet it raised its profit guidance, saying it expects adjusted earnings per share to range from $9 to $9.70, up from the previous outlook of $8.60 and $9.60.Inflation and consumers\u2019 outrage about high prices has continued to loom large for companies like Target. A wide range of retailers, including Home Depot, Walmart and Macy\u2019s, have reported over the past two weeks that cautious consumers are being picky about where they\u2019re spending.<\/p>\n
Cornell said on \u201cSquawk Box\u201d that the retailer is trying to appeal to \u201ca consumer who is managing their budget carefully\u201d and said \u201cvalue is in our DNA.\u201d<\/p>\n
Target is one of the consumer brands that has responded to shoppers\u2019 concerns by lowering prices. It cut prices on about 5,000 everyday items, such as diapers and peanut butter, to try to drive higher traffic and sales. Others, such as McDonald\u2019s, have debuted value meals.<\/p>\n
So far, those discounts have shown signs of resonating at Target: In the quarter, customer traffic across Target\u2019s stores and website rose 3% \u2014 even as shoppers put a little less in their shopping carts than they did a year ago.<\/p>\n
Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said last week that prices have come down in many merchandise categories, but said that inflation \u201chas been more stubborn\u201d in the aisles that carry dry groceries and processed foods.<\/p>\n
On an earnings call with investors, he said some brands \u201care still talking about cost increases, and we\u2019re fighting back on that aggressively because we think prices need to come down.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There\u2019s no room for price gouging in a ultra-competitive business like retail, Target CEO Brian Cornell said on Wednesday. In an interview on CNBC\u2019s \u201cSquawk Box,\u201d the retail chief disputed campaign talking points accusing grocers of inflating prices. He said retailers have to be responsive to customers or risk losing business. He was asked by CNBC\u2019s Joe <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6736,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-6735","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6735\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}