Target Corporation posted first-quarter net sales growth of 6.7% year-over-year, well ahead of internal expectations, as the Minneapolis-based mass retailer reported broad-based gains across all six core merchandise categories, every major sales channel, and each month of the period ending May 2026.
GAAP and adjusted earnings per share came in at $1.71 for the quarter. On an adjusted basis, that marks a 32% improvement over the prior-year period, though it represents a 24% decline against the year-ago GAAP figure, which was inflated by non-recurring legal-settlement gains. Comparable store traffic rose 4.4% against Q1 2025, a metric closely watched by consumer-sector analysts as a proxy for underlying demand health.
Digital comparable sales climbed 8.9%, with same-day delivery — powered by the Target Circle 360 membership programme — accelerating at more than 27%. The pace underscores a broader industry shift toward fulfillment speed as a primary competitive lever, a dynamic that has forced food and household-goods suppliers to recalibrate their retail media and last-mile logistics agreements. For F&B vendors on the Target+ third-party marketplace, the digital surge creates both shelf-space opportunity and incremental margin pressure as promotional participation costs rise alongside platform scale.
Non-merchandise revenue, which encompasses Roundel retail media, Target Circle 360 subscription fees, and Target+ marketplace commissions, grew nearly 25% in the quarter. That line is increasingly material to supplier negotiations: packaged-food and beverage brands allocating trade-spend budgets must now weigh Roundel's audience-targeting capabilities against competing retail-media networks at Walmart Connect and Amazon Ads. The strong growth suggests Target is gaining wallet share in that contest.
The results reinforce a divergence emerging across large-format retail: operators with diversified revenue streams — advertising, membership, and marketplace fees layered atop core product sales — are demonstrating earnings resilience that pure-play grocery chains have struggled to match. Target's food and beverage assortment, anchored by owned brands such as Good & Gather and Favorite Day, benefited from the traffic influx, though the company did not break out category-level revenue in its initial release. Investors and CPG counterparties will parse the full earnings call transcript for any colour on basket composition and promotional intensity. For context on how retail media investment is reshaping F&B trade spend, see our earlier analysis at /retail-media/trade-spend-shift-2025, and for the competitive landscape among mass-market grocers, see /grocery/mass-retail-grocery-competition.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
