I wonder what would cause such a decline for Target
You know, about that Target showing the biggest decline in Black Friday sales they reported. I wouldn't worry too much about Target. I bet they did gangbusters the week before Black Friday.
They had crazy crazy deals with the 20% off toys, 10 % off wishlist, 15% off your registry, and another 15% off your order I found online. The 40% off of pajamas. They had like 20% off kitchen items. Their "deals week" leading up to Black Friday seemed very effective, at least anecdotally. They also had the Buy 2 get 1 free on Board Games, and 3 of those codes stacked with Board Games. I was able to stack ALL of these coupon codes, on ALL of my toy purchases (they all didn't work for electronics, but I bought my games at Best Buy). I know on Black Friday, toys are a huge seller. And the fact that you could stack all these coupons didn't go unnoticed on deals sites like Slick Deals and CAG. That is where I found out about it.
I went to Target several days last week to simply pick up all the crap I ordered online, and my 2 stores seemed very busy!
Since Target takes off the 20% first, then the 15% off whats left, then the 15% of whats left, then 10% off of what is left, I averaged out to about 40% off my total purchases for my kids. Those prices were better than anywhere else on Black Friday for things like the Orbotix Ollie, Sphero Sprk, Mip Robot, etc. I got about $40 off of each of those items, and it was glorious.