They should probably scrap food and keep grocery items like household cleaners, laundry, etc. that are easily warehoused and have no expiration date. At least here in Atlanta, they never seemed committed to a wide assortment and had a heavy dose of private label.

It’s hard to judge Ms. Dament’s performance based on fewer than 18 months on the job and the possibly insurmountable challenge she faced. Maybe she underperformed, maybe it was a bad cultural fit or strategic clash — who knows? Anybody trying to turn this around quickly has not been dealt a winning hand.

Brian Cornell wrote off the Target Canada fiasco very quickly, but I’m not sure he can walk away from the grocery business so easily. The company spent billions on remodels and infrastructure to establish the business and it doesn’t appear to have a replacement strategy waiting in the wings.

But how does Target fix it? It’s not a “top of mind” business and doesn’t have the critical mass needed to draw weekly shoppers. Perhaps Target should hire somebody from a more disruptive grocer (think Aldi or Trader Joe’s) who can offer up a more innovative, curated approach to the category.

Getting it right at retail in any segment is an ever changing goal. And the grocery segment has been rapidly evolving (consolidation, Amazon Fresh, Aldi, Lidl, convenience channel expansion, etc.) during Ms. Dament’s watch.

That said, I don’t believe Target should give up on grocery. Why? Because the shoppers in the store have found benefit in the one-stop shopping environment. The challenge, in my opinion, is that the assortment is too broad in some categories, too narrow in others, and not organized for convenience. I’d prefer that Target make a decision to either be a full-line grocer (this is going to present the biggest challenge), a private brand destination (e.g., Aldi-esque), or a c-store (think “7-11 inside”). Once identity is determined, Target must rally around that focused business and return to its more effective marketing roots.

I’m sure many of my BrainTrust counterparts will recommend abandoning grocery altogether … I guess I’m the eternal optimist and would rather see this phoenix rise from its own ashes.

No, no, no. Target entered the grocery business to recession-proof the company, but there’s nothing about Oreos and frozen fish that reinforces Target’s brand as the leader of chic and inexpensive trendiness. Grocery selections are thin and the margins are thinner. I’ll predict that this experiment will last only a few more years.

Having read the comments of other contributors one can understand the varying opinions. I think it would be a mistake to exit grocery. Everyone knew it was going to take a while to turn this aircraft carrier. I suggest that Target follows two of my rules of strategy (number seven and eight), namely, focus-focus-focus and concentrate your resources. Target needs to focus on grocery and figure out what the job is to be done in grocery relative to its customer base. Having done that, Target needs to concentrate its resources at the point of attack, namely the grocery section, to achieve the job to be done. If neither of these two actions take place, then grocery will continue to be a drag on Target’s performance.

Target should commit or get out of grocery for sure. And by committing, I mean making grocery a priority, like their competition does — better fresh, more space devoted to the category, warmer design (grocery customers don’t like “sterile,” just ask Whole Foods), feature grocery up front vs the dollar area, meals to go, devoted staff, BOPIS, on and on. Grocery just doesn’t feel like it matters in Target and customers can sense that.

Then there’s the whole issue of not doing it well for the past 30 years. Customers get that too.

So here’s my suggestion: take it all online. Do online grocery in select markets only and store it in the back of key locations for BOPIS and shipping. It’s just too big of an investment for front of house during this era of shrinking physical retail. Why bother when most likely you’ll be closing a lot of stores in the years coming up. You’re going to wind up competing with online grocers anyway, why not start now?

Grocery is not Target’s strength, and it should be accepted that it cannot be with the limited selection and space Target has committed to this. Short of a new store design for all Target stores, Target should focus on its strength in hard goods and commit the resources to continually improving those categories it includes instead of shifting resources into a losing proposition like grocery.

The challenge of the grocery business is the depth of the product assortment that is required by today’s upscale customer segment. Target has attempted to replicate European grocery stores in creating a higher-end store brand, but American consumers are more attached to their own brands and do not see the value in the store brand to create a premium price.

Target can be a small private label grocery provider or a larger branded grocery provider — there really are not any other choices.

The first rule is reinforce your DNA. The second is give those who are your best prospects and customers what they want.

So far, zero out of two.