Business Insider/Mary Hanbury
TJ Maxx was cluttered with discounted designer goods.
- Target and TJ Maxx shoppers love these stores because of the treasure-hunt shopping experience that they provide.
- Both are known for their addictive shopping experience. They're frequently featured in memes about going into a store to make one purchase but ending up buying far more.
- We visited two stores in Downtown Manhattan and found that Target offered a better atmosphere for shopping.
From the outset, Target and TJ Maxx seem to be two quite different stores.
TJ Maxx is an off-price retailer with around 1,200 US stores that sell clothing, homeware, and gourmet food at discounted prices.
Target, on the other hand, is a big-box retailer with around 1,800 stores in the US, selling everything from groceries to electronics and clothing, with some locations also offering cafés and CVS pharmacies in-store. It's more often compared to Walmart or Costco.
Despite this, these two stores have one very similar defining characteristic: they're both known for their so-called treasure-hunt shopping experience, and there is a big overlap in shoppers because of this. They both have become the subject of memes about customers coming in to a store for one item but leaving with much more.
Twitter/ TLynch @TLynchiebaby
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We decided to put these two stores head to head to see which offered a better experience for shoppers. The locations that we compared were near each other in Downtown Manhattan, New York City.
Here's what we found: