Target fights off Amazon in early Black Friday battle

Target announced its plans to encourage safe shopping this holiday season during the coronavirus pandemic. The retail giants says it plans to double the number of parking lot spots devoted to picking up online orders. Employees will also be outside stores managing how shoppers enter in order to promote social distancing efforts. Yahoo Finance's Brian Sozzi and Alexis Christoforous discuss.

Video Transcript

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: We are keeping our eye on Target, though. It's one of the stocks we are watching closely today. The retailer is out with new safety protocols for the holidays.

And Brian, I know you had a chance to speak with Target CEO about this. I think we're all wondering, you know, what is the holiday shopping season going to look like? And I guess now we're getting some clues.

BRIAN SOZZI: Yeah. I can give you those answers, Alexis. A couple of things out from Target, had a chance to catch up with Target Chairman and CEO Brian Cornell on a media call last night. Basically, touchless checkouts. They're investing big on that. And so you don't have to touch a scanner. You can just check yourself out with your wallet. That's pretty cool.

Also, new technology inside of the stores, almost like an Apple store where an employee will help you check out anywhere in the store. So that's pretty cool too.

And mind control. Don't expect that you'll be able to bum rush a store to take advantage of some of Target's deals in November. You will likely have to wait outside and they will bring you back in if there is enough capacity in the stores.

But also, Alexis, worth noting here, on this call Cornell noting that their Deals Tuesday sale last week that ran on the same day as Amazon Prime, those sales on that day were up 2 and 1/2 times year-over-year. So I have an article right now on Yahoo Finance looking at clearly Target took the fight to Amazon on Amazon Prime Day. Interesting to see.