My thought is that because Target's downfall was really location. Zellers got significantly worse and worse over the years that eventually, people stopped shopping there and took their business elsewhere. As a result, Zellers only existed in dead-end malls with low foot traffic because the majority of people went to Walmart.

Target decided it was a good idea to buy up all the Zellers locations and put their stores in there. But by that time, people's habits changed. Target wasn't going to revive dead malls.