When e-commerce first became mainstream, Target made what seemed pragmatic: partner with Amazon to sell everything online. Amazon had the infrastructure, the expertise, the platform. Target quickly realized this wasn't sustainable. They were giving Amazon valuable customer data and relationships. Limited in their ability to control the experience. Building Amazon's business more than their own. Unable to differentiate their digital experience.
Target initiated a massive project to move from Amazon to their own proprietary e-commerce engine. This wasn't just a platform migration, it was a fundamental shift in how Target approached digital commerce. Target was one of Huge's biggest clients, generating the most revenue that year. The scale was massive. I traveled to Minneapolis every week, overseeing as many as 8 concurrent projects. My role encompassed both tactical and strategic work: project manager for individual work streams, program manager coordinating across all Target projects, strategic partner helping define the future of retail.
One of the biggest learnings from the Target engagement was the value of having a strategy that inspires the company. Huge developed an eCommerce strategy that Target loved. That was one partnership worked so well because that strategy gave us a North Star. We weren't just design an e-commerce platform, we were creating a place people would love to shop. That's a fundamentally different design challenge.
Beyond the immediate e-commerce work, we did forward-thinking conceptual work on the future of retail. Looking back from 2025, it's fascinating to see what came to pass. For me, a big strategic insight was about what doesn't work versus what does work. Putting kiosks inside retail stores doesn't work. People don't really love using kiosks. They're often grimy, confusing, and rarely better than talking to an employee or shopping on your own phone. What does work is building tools to make team members smarter. Give employees technology to know more about inventory (what's in stock, where it is), understand how inventory flows through the store, access customer information to provide better service, have as much information as possible to be gracious, helpful team members.
One thing I was wrong about... QR Codes. I remember working on a QR codes system to extend in store offerings to Target's websites. Take a picture with your phone, open your QR code reader, and then go to the website. Even if and when Apple would integrate a QR code reader into phone app, I wasn't sure it would be easy enough. So many people had to learn how to use them! At the time, I was skeptical about QR codes. They became ubiquitous, especially post-pandemic. I was wrong.
The bigger lesson is that technology should make shopping more delightful, employees more capable, and businesses more sustainable.