Key takeaways:
- Target’s back-to-school assortment is more than 50% new this year with thousands of exclusive items.
- The retailer is opening 11 new stores across 10 states in July, including two in Texas.
- Target’s Q1 2026 net sales rose 6.7% to $25.4 billion.
Target said more than half of its back-to-school and back-to-college assortment is new this year, with thousands of items exclusive to the retailer across apparel, school supplies, dorm decor and other categories.
“We’ve put together an assortment with more trend-forward style, great design and unrivaled value than ever before,” Cara Sylvester, Target’s EVP and Chief Merchandising Officer, said in a statement. “It’s distinctly Target.”
The season’s headline launch is LoveShackFancy x Target, an exclusive collection for tweens and teens available beginning July 5. The collection retails for under $55, with most items under $25, and spans apparel, accessories, beauty and school supplies, with extra finds from Yoobi, Wet Brush, Goody, Case-Mate and Wild.
Other new brand partnerships include:
- Overtime, bringing sports-inspired apparel to Target for the first time alongside backpacks and water bottles starting at $24.99, available online and in select stores June 14 and nationwide July 5.
- The Hollister Collection at Target, launching June 28 with apparel and Hollister’s first home products, including bedding and dorm decor, mostly under $50.
- Owala x Cat & Jack, launching nationwide July 5 with backpacks, lunch bags and water bottles priced between $3 and $25.
- Poppi x Target, a limited-time dorm collection featuring robes, throw blankets and mini fridges starting at $20.
Target’s owned brands round out the assortment. All in Motion is entering the uniform shop for the first time, Threshold is making its dorm debut, up&up is launching a pastel school supplies line starting at 69 cents and Dealworthy is offering $5 backpacks and $2 water bottles.
Target Circle members get up to 45% off through Deal Days, which runs through June 26, and is designed to compete with Amazon’s Prime Day, which is currently in progress.
New Stores Reinforce the Merchandising Push
The assortment expansion arrives as Target opens 11 new stores across Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Kentucky, Massachusetts, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas and Utah in July, according to Target’s store openings fact sheet. The openings keep Target on pace for 30 new stores in 2026 and more than 300 by 2035.
Each new store exceeds the chain’s 125,000-square-foot average, Target said. Chief Stores Officer Adrienne Costanzo said the new locations are designed to extend the company’s merchandising strengths into physical space.
“These new stores give our teams the tools and environments to bring our merchandising strengths to life, create easier and more inspiring shopping experiences and use technology to move smarter and faster every day,” Costanzo said.
Several of the new locations are near universities and are opening in time for back-to-college shopping. Â The Seneca, South Carolina store sits near Clemson University, the Brookings, South Dakota location is close to South Dakota State University and the Logan, Utah store serves Utah State University.
The July openings are part of a $5 billion capital plan for 2026 that also funds more than 130 store remodels and additional store payroll and training, according to Target.
Building on a Stronger First Quarter
The expanded assortment and store count follow a first quarter in which Target reported net sales of $25.4 billion, up 6.7% from $23.8 billion a year earlier. Comparable sales increased 5.6%, comparable store sales climbed 4.7% and comparable digital sales grew 8.9%.
Customer traffic rose 4.4% compared with the same period in 2025. The company opened seven new locations in the first quarter, including its 2,000th store.
CEO Michael Fiddelke, who took the role in February, called the results encouraging but said a single strong quarter was not the goal. Target raised its full year net sales growth outlook to around 4% following the quarter, while CFO Jim Lee said the company is watching for softening consumer sentiment as the boost from this year’s tax refunds fades.
Partnerships and exclusive collaborations were already a growth driver heading into the back-to-school season. First quarter drops from Parke, Roller Rabbit and Pokemon drew long lines and some of the strongest launch week sales in the company’s history, according to Sylvester.
