Target Corporate Headquarters at Target Plaza in Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S., May 5, 2023. Target Corporation is an American retail corporation.
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Over the past few years, Target has slipped from being a retail shining star to something far more commonplace. After reaching $109 billion in revenue in fiscal 2022, it’s been on a steady multiyear slide—disappointing customers with uninspired merchandising, poorly tended stores and corporate policy shifts that sparked nationwide boycotts. By 2025, net sales had dropped to $104.8 billion and comp-in-store sales were down 4% year over year, a clear sign that Target was losing its “Tar-zhay”—that je ne sais quoi that made people fall in love with the brand.
Restoring that aura will take more than offering trendy products at affordable prices. Trends move too fast these days, and a retailer has to get the timing just right or miss the moment entirely. Relying on trends alone is not a sustainable business model.
Rather, Target is leaning into what matters most to its core customers—especially busy parents who want to provide the best for their families. It has identified wellness as the connective tissue to forge a deeper, more meaningful bond with the customer’s body, mind, soul and wallet. Target doesn’t want to be just a good place to shop; it wants to be a good place for my family and me to shop—it’s a subtle but meaningful shift.
“It allows us to be even more trusted and counted on for how people live their lives,” shared Amanda Nusz, senior vice president of merchandising, beauty and essentials. “People want cleaner products and more transparency about what’s in them, and they expect Target to show up here with style and design. They are looking for what I call ‘no compromise.’”
Wellness Is More Than A Trend—It’s A Cultural-Shift
Wellness is more than a here-today, gone-tomorrow trend. It represents a cultural shift led by Gen Z and millennial consumers, with older consumers following their lead. McKinsey estimates that American consumers are spending $500 billion on products that promise better overall health, sleep, nutrition, mindfulness, fitness and appearance. It’s an investment in quality-of-life that consumers are willing to spend more on even as budgets tighten—the U.S. wellness market is growing between 4% and 5% annually.
In a survey of nearly 4,000 U.S. adults, McKinsey found that consumers are less likely to cut spending in wellness categories than in more discretionary categories such as clothing, entertainment, and home. McKinsey declared that wellness is evolving from a niche interest into a mainstream lifestyle priority.
“To millennials and Gen Zers, wellness has become a daily, personalized practice rather than a set of occasional activities or purchases. Even though younger demographics may be pushing the industry forward, older consumers, too, are becoming more interested in an expanding definition of wellness,” McKinsey reports. “Younger consumers are conceptualizing wellness in new ways, and wellness is showing up in new places.”
Target is one of those places and it is conceptualizing wellness across its entire assortment—not just in the health, beauty and food aisles. Wellness now cuts across virtually every department in a Target store: sporting goods and toys for active and educational play; apparel for activewear and environmentally responsible clothing; baby essentials for health and safety; home for better bedding and sleep; technology for wearables and health monitors; and household essentials for cleaner cleaning products.
Across Target’s Wellness Ecosystem
Under the broader umbrella of wellness, Target has built a $10 billion business in its health division— spanning personal care, over-the-counter meds, nutrition and vitamins and women’s health. It’s not a reported segment, but it is recognized as “one of Target’s largest and most productive divisions.”
Placed in context, the reported Beauty segment was a $13 billion business last year and wellness is a major growth driver there as well. The health division has grown from $3 billion over the last five years, with some 80 million shoppers—70% of Target’s customers—purchasing in the category last year.
Target has reimagined wellness from a functional, replenishment-driven category into a discovery-led one. “We are relentlessly focused on the consumer, making sure the products we curate are committed to innovation, accessibility and design,” Nusz said. “Wellness is about being healthier but also about being the best version of yourself and how you want to live your life.”
Earlier this year, Target was one of the first national retailers to raise the wellness bar by banning all cereals made with synthetic dyes and colors from its shelves. It also added 2,000 new products to its wellness assortment, expanding its health range by 25% with over 1,000 new items.
The expansion touched nearly every department of the store. Food and beverage got an uplift in functional and non-alcoholic beverages, adding Poppi prebiotic soda, Bloom colostrum and collagen boosting drinks, Bero non-alcoholic beer from actor Tom Holland and 250 new items in Target’s exclusive Good & Gather grocery line.
Wellness tech added 140 new products, like Therabody’s SmartGoggles for sleep, Oura ring health tracker and SLF’s LED Face Mask, which crosses over into beauty. In apparel, Target expanded its private label All in Motion activewear and introduced Auden pajamas with cooling fabric. Better-for-you Casaluna bedding was added in home and Target’s Baby Boutique expanded its assortment with new wellness-oriented formula, food, diapering and skincare products.
Going forward, Target has identified women’s health, from menstrual care through menopause, as a priority. It is also expanding its men’s health range, leaning into their new interest in skincare with mini-sizes for trial. It will continue to bring in vitamins and nutrition offerings with emerging functional health brands such as AG1, Seed, Supergut, Biome, Just Ingredients and Hiya for kids.
Across hydration, sleep, food and beverage, activewear, clean beauty and baby and family health, Target’s Nusz says it is “curating around how guests actually live—not just what they need to replenish.”
Wellness Is Target’s Path To Corporate Health
Target will report its next earnings this Wednesday, May 20. While it did not provide guidance for first quarter 2026, the company expects full-year net sales growth around 2% with sequential improvement in each quarter. That optimism follows a disappointing fourth quarter 2025, when net sales fell 1.5%, comparable sales declined 2.5% and transactions dropped 2.9%.
However, against a backdrop where every reported segments was flat or down last year—except Food & Beverage, which grew 1.3% at $24.1 billion—wellness was a bright spot. Chief merchandising officer Cara Sylvester reported that sales in this multi-category space, spanning food, supplements, beauty, and active, grew 4.6% on a comp basis and during the January resolution season, wellness generated $2 billion alone in net sales. Target’s fiscal year ended January 31.
The company’s comprehensive wellness initiative—combined with CFO Jim Lee reporting “very healthy topline growth in February” in last earnings call—sets the stage for a potentially strong showing in the first quarter.
Placer.ai reported that Target foot traffic growth rose 5.1% year-over-year during the first three months of the year—with a particular spike in longer visits—after being flat in last year’s first quarter and declining every quarter thereafter.
“Target’s return to traffic growth—driven by increases in mid-length trips—signals a sustainable recovery on the horizon,” Placer.ai reported. “Target’s turnaround shows how increasing shopper engagement can generate growth by converting quick trips into higher-value, multi-category experiences.”
Wellness is proving a key to Target’s multi-category experiences and through it, Target is charting a defensible path back to corporate health.
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