Target — Local services in San Diego

Summary: Only shop at this Target if you have NO alternative; it's basically a giant 7-Eleven. The selection is terrible, the prices are massively inflated, and they often only have their in-house brand at higher prices than you'd pay elsewhere for a well-known brand. If you go to any real grocery store, you'll pay about half of what you would for the same items at this Target.

They are very good at being out of items you think they'd have. Expect Target-branded options of every grocery item but NO standard brands, or ONE variant of the name brand at 2x its normal cost (example, Domino sugar vs Target brand), all but forcing you to buy the generic. As another example, you can only buy Target-brand vanilla here, nothing else. They are aggressively forcing their Gather-branded products on people vs. offering a full selection of grocery products from reputable brands. See photo of the options for oats: 4 types of Good & Gather; not a single other brand.

Highly reliant on the self-checkout and often has lines, but if you are buying alcohol and groceries at the same time…you have to use their cashiers. Because of the gas-station style counter setup, you get the fun experience of handing your items individually to your cashier, and then having the items accumulate in a pile on the tiny counter. They should just enable alcohol purchases with self-checkout; the system of having one employee check IDs in self-checkouts is faster and works well everywhere else.

Stock and selection issues aside, the employees are truly friendly and very helpful. But the selection is so bad, and the prices for the items they have are so egregious (even by SD standards), I actively try to avoid going to this location. It is truly a stain on the Target brand.

Update: th pathetic selection, brand assortment and pricing issues here persist. Recently I was looking for brown sugar - a simple household ingredient that is readily available anywhere claiming to be a grocery store. And yet, to my disbelief, this joke of a store was SOLD OUT of brown sugar. They only stock their house Garbage & Gather brand, and BOTH shelf spots for brown sugar were empty. Furthermore, the employee (again they are always super friendly, the bad review does not apply to any of the floor employees) checked, and there was no brown sugar in the back either. Mind you, this was not at a time of PEAK DEMAND for brown sugar - say, near Thanksgiving or Christmas, when people might be baking up a storm. No, this was a random weekday in mid December.

Update 2: The stock levels and item selection in this Target are still positively terrible. The massive weighting towards their generic, in-house branded goods in both shelf space and stock levels, continues to be a point of extreme frustration. Most recently, I encountered a new low: on two different visits, sold out of the leading brand of aluminum foil, but of course the Target generic brand was in stock. The kicker? The Target brand was MORE EXPENSIVE than the regular brand. While you often see name brands being more expensive than the generic of a product at any major chain store, this is the first example I've seen of a store both a) not keeping adequate stock of the brand option AND b) charging MORE for the generic. Absolutely insane; whoever manages the stock, price levels and item selection at this Target should find a new career path.

Target: if you’re only going to carry your in-house brand (but charge the same or greater price as actual respectable brands), you should at least keep your own products in stock. I’m sure there are very angry Domino Sugar or Reynolds Wrap brand reps somewhere who have ample brown sugar / aluminum foil reserves and would love to help you out here, but you clog the shelves with your own junk brands, leaving no space for the actual established brands consumers know and love - all to boost your profits.

Please, either offer a respectable selection of brands, or at least keep your generics readily available. I actually love Target and am a longtime Red Card user, but this one...

UPDATE: I've gone many months without stepping foot inside a target store and it FEELS AMAZING to make better, more ethical shopping decisions! Now I support small business and bodegas in my neighborhood and I even started using a waste free refill store. I deleted my target red card account and feel loads lighter (plus they no longer have access to my personal and financial information). This is all because of my anger at what a money hungry company target has become. I will never be back. You lost a lifetime customer because of your shady business. No DEI? No business. You suck target

items locked up in inconvenient cases which is all the rage in corporate anti-theft and a huge headache for the consumer who don't have time to wait for your employees to open cabinets

-Almost every single aisle full of carts loaded with supplies to stock the shelves making it impossible to shop. It's like trying to shop in an obstacle course. And this is EVERY SINGLE TIME I shop at this store--- not an isolated event

-lack of open self-checkouts and lack of cashiers; long wait lines. Out of an entire row of self checkouts, only 2 are ever open for use. Or you can opt to wait in a long line to be checked out by a human.

-shopping carts lock right outside the door of the store rendering them useless to take items to your car. I have an injury and nothing helps me more than having to carry armloads of consumer goods to my car!

Target ended their DEI programs in line with far right policies and now is not a safe work space for equal rights and opportunities for all humans regardless of skin color. This also means Target is no longer a safe place for the general public to shop since they do not value diversity and inclusion practices.

In spirit of this, I will be diversifying and exclusively inclusive to small local businesses. My thousands of dollars a year spent at Target will now go elsewhere. My money has POWER and is a VOTE for my values. I don't need to support companies that don't believe in diversity, equality and inclusion.

Thanks for revealing your true intentions Target! I will slowly be unraveling myself (and my bank account) from your greedy corporate clutches

Such a shame to see Target going downhill like this. Really wish we had better shopping options in our neighborhood but we're stuck with this corporate giant.

Businesses firm in their DEI commitment include Costco and small businesses. Target is a choice. Choose humanity. Choose DIVERSITY, choose EQUALITY, choose INCLUSION and put your money where your values lie. My values don't lie in companies who fall to fascist government leaders whims and...

I remember hearing that by having a Target in South Park would bring is super duper crazy traffic from all over...but honestly, I really dont know what all the fuss is about. Having a local Target in the south park neighborhood is great. It sure beats heading to the packed like crazy Mission Valley location. True, it doesn't have a lot of items, but it has the basic essentials -paper plates, house decor, toys, office supplies, handy dandy tools, snack, produce, alcohol, drinks, clothes, pharmacy..even cell phone kiosk. Prices seem to be the same as other Target stores. When I order online for store pick up, this location just blocks away from my home, so that a huge plus for me, plus I'm not waiting a super long time for the customer service member to come back with my stuff. They really are express! I've never had any problems or issues using coupons or the carrhwheel app, finding parking, items or getting help or even returning items. Never waited more than a couple of minutes at checkout. Always had great customer service....