Once upon a time, when a merchandising outlet the size of Target turned down an artist, it usually spelled doom for the release of their CD. But with Beyoncé, who has the type of star power that's allowed her project to become the fastest-selling set in the history of iTunes, her leverage has moved to a new level.
In the past, Beyoncé staged surprise visits to shoppers at Target on at least three occasions. However, with the store's recent decision to not carry her self-titled CD, Mrs. Carter took her philanthropic ways to their main competitor, Walmart. The surprise visit set the weekend holiday shopping off at a location in Tewksbury, Mass where she picked up a few toys for baby Blue Ivy, a hard copy of her new CD, and gave a $50 gift card to everyone in the store. According to US Weekly, the total spent was around $37,000.
But Target’s dis has turned out to be a blessing for Beyoncé. Her move to embrace Walmart comes as Target faces multi-million dollar class action lawsuits filed in response to being at the center of one of the largest national credit card breaches revealed last week. An estimated 40 million debit and credit card account numbers were stolen from customers who shopped at Target between November 27 and December 15. This weekend, the store shared that it's working with the NSA to investigate the breach, and offered a 10 percent discount to customers as an apology. Still, according to CNN, traffic this weekend at Target stores nationwide was down. In response to the breach, credit card giant JPMorgan placed disappointing caps on customer card accounts to $100 cash withdrawals and $300 limits on purchases.
