Target — Local services in San Jose

I cannot recommend shopping at this store for many reasons. Background: I normally shop at the SJ College Park (Coleman) location and will also shop at the SJ Capitol location if Coleman is out of stock on an item. This was my first time at the San Jose North (Holger) location.

PEOPLE ARE NOT SOCIAL DISTANCING AT THIS LOCATION. STAFF ARE NOT ALLOWED TO ENFORCE LOCAL HEALTH ORDINANCES FOR SOCIAL DISTANCING. THERE IS NOT SUFFICIENT SIGNAGE IN THE STORE TO REMIND PEOPLE TO MAINTAIN APPROPRIATE DISTANCE.

There was a customer walking around the store without a mask on. I brought it to the attention of a store manager and she stated that they are NOT ALLOWED to enforce social distancing requirements. Only to remind customers to please abide by them. The manager also pulled her mask down exposing her nose while telling me she isn't allowed to enforce the local health ordinance. Really??

There are signs on the ground for ONLY the self-checkout line marking 6-ft distance. But this is not being done for ANY of the regular checkout lanes. I was in line at a regular checkout lane buying baby formula and the family in line behind me was not keeping their distance. I needed to use the card reader and asked the man in line behind me (see photo) to give me some room please. He reluctantly moved while calling me STUPID. I asked him "what did you say to me!?" The entirely family gave me dirty looks as if I had kicked their dog. How hard is it to give the person in front of you 6 ft of clearance during a pandemic? It is for your health and your family's health as much as it is for mine. I also informed the manager of this man's behavior and she had nothing to offer in terms of enforcement.

The baby formula I went in to the store to buy was listed at $10.99 on the Target website as well as on the Target Circle app. In store it was marked as $12.99 and this was the price at the register. I asked for a price match (which the manager eventually honored) but only after quite a bit of back and forth. The manager kept reiterating to me that the price I was seeing was for the SJ Capitol store and they do not price match other stores. Fair enough. I asked why is yours $2 more? She cited "we're closer to the SF Bay Area so that's why the price is higher". Uhh what? You're not THAT much closer to SF than the Capitol store to warrant a 18.2% mark-up. And last time I checked SJ Capitol is still a part of the Bay Area.

I was also able to show her on the Target App on my phone that the price for delivery, in-store pick-up or curbside pick-up at her SJ North store was the same ($10.99) as the Capitol store. Her phone scanner was showing her $12.99 and she simply stated "well we don't go by the Target Circle App". Uhh, okay, but the Target Circle app pulls from the Target website doesn't it? It is your company's app, is it not? I literally could have bought it from her store on my app, walked over to the counter to pick it up for the $10.99 price, and NOT had to deal with this issue. There was a 20% Target Circle offer that I also wanted to use, but she either said it was already reflected in the $10.99 price (wrong) or that they don't allow the coupon on top of the price match. Fine lady, you win.

It was incredibly frustrating having her invalidate what I was saying when I could clearly show her on my phone that the price was $10.99 for all stores, online, and delivery. I have received price matching at the Coleman and Capitol locations without having to go through this whole rigmarole. The ONLY reason I went in-store to buy this was that I wanted to use the 20% off Target Circle offer and I had a $10 manufacturer rebate voucher (in-store only). I ended up having to pay the $0.99 difference since she wouldn't allow me to use the 20% discount. It wasn't worth $0.99 to leave and get it at my regular store so I just went ahead and bought it.

BUT NEVER AGAIN WILL I BOTHER WITH THIS STORE. THIS WAS SO NOT WORTH THE HASSLE THIS MANAGER PUT ME THROUGH NOR THE RUDE MAN CALLING ME STUPID FOR ASKING HIM TO...

I saw the sale and got bunch of items including facial tissues , paper towels , detergent in order to get the gift card. At the end the gift card was not offered and I asked and they told me facial tissues didn’t count as household items . I told them it is and they didn’t wanna offer it so the transaction had to be canceled and I had to go back to their shelf to take the photos of the promotional flyer to show the employees . Then they laughed and asked why am I buying so many tissues ? ( I don’t think a professional customer service clerk is supposed to ask customers this type of questions while I don’t even know them ). They keep on questioning me and figured out I was right but only end up just saying “ so does $15 is all you want and care? If u just want $15, I will just give u that” with a not so kind attitude . While I live close by and come to this location almost every other day , I never had anyone there providing service like this before . Even more , I don’t think I deserve to be treated this way as a loyal customer . While it’s their system doesn’t align with the promotional deal , I didn’t hear any apology or feel they have any intention to make the system work . Instead , I have to keep on proving the deal myself while most shops usually just honor the deal nicely without even questioning anything . Their attitude feels like they honor the gift card to me just to “honor” it as I asked for it so that everyone who saw this would probably think I am just a greedy ridiculous woman and it’s my fault to ask for the gift card which is not supposed to be mine. This is not the first time the system didn’t work properly and many times the managers would just honor it without me going back and forth helping them finding the mistake the system had. What has happened is very frustrating and I do think system need to be worked out better with the promotional deal and the newest employees need to know their products and promotion better and treating customers with a bit more respect .Otherwise it will really cause the loyal customers stop shopping in this location...

This Target is new(ish), and has a reasonable amount of parking...that's great. It's generally clean inside, and the employees seem friendly enough. Great.

There are two problems with this store specifically (in comparison with Target stores in New England, and also in the northern midwest):

The lines are almost always way longer than they should be. There are employees all over the place fronting the store, but they only seem to call cashiers back if the lines get above 15 or so people. If you go during busier times, there are a few more lanes open, but still long lines. Go during a down time, and you'll wait because only one line is open.

This store has a supply problem. There are multiple aisles that have huge amounts of missing merchandise, and it's never (or rarely) refilled. I wanted trail mix once (I like the "Monster" mix but add more peanuts), and almost all the trail mix was gone. Two months ago I noticed it was empty, and it's STILL empty as of yesterday. I went to the Target in Sunnyvale today, and there was plenty of trail mix.

The second aisle is the bedding. I've been going back for weeks to find a black fitted sheet. There are missing sizes and colors not in the right spot (minor nuisance). Again, I went to the Sunnyvale Target, and picked one up, they had a bunch of them.

Oh, and often the refrigerated deli section tends to have large sections of missing merchandise too. That's more understandable probably because it seems like those items have high turnover, so it might be more difficult to keep stocked.

In any case, it may sound harsh to rate it 3/5, but if nobody mentions these things, they'll never change. They probably won't change on account of my review anyway, but...