One Analyst Thinks Amazon’s Next Acquisition Is Target

It’s fair to say that Amazon had a great 2017: Announcing HQ2, winning at Black Friday, and—who could forget?—its nearly $14 billion Whole Foods order. How do you follow up a year like that? Well, one analyst thinks that Bezos could be looking to target the bullseye.

Loup Ventures analyst Gene Munster thinks that Amazon has the Minneapolis retailer in its sights. He’s quoted by Business Insider:

Amazon believes the future of retail is a mix of mostly online and some offline. Target is the ideal offline partner for Amazon for two reasons, shared demographic and manageable but comprehensive store count.

That demographic he’s talking about? Moms.

“Target’s focus on moms is central to Amazon’s approach to win wallet share,” he wrote. “Amazon has, over the years, aggressively pursued moms through promotions around Prime along with loading Prime Video with kid-friendly content.”

Target has been working to compete with Amazon, and rolled out a lot of customer-focused updates last year, including next-day delivery, curbside pickup, new store layouts, and lower everyday prices. They even acquired same day delivery service Shipt as an Instacart/Whole Foods competitor.

While we would normally say that it seems unlikely that Target would sell itself to Amazon, 2017 had its share of over the top acquisitions that could pave the way. The Whole Foods deal—among others like Fox and Disney—proves you should never say never.