Target plans to open two new, smaller format stores on Long Island this October, the company said Tuesday.

The stores, in Freeport and Elmont, will feature a smaller merchandise selection than the chain’s full-size stores.

A 46,000-square-foot store is planned for the Meadowbrook Commons shopping center in Freeport. The center, owned by Kimco Realty, is at the corner of Sunrise Highway and Meadowbrook Parkway.

The Freeport Target will replace a Stop & Shop that announced its closure in January.

The second store, even smaller at 24,500 square feet, will be at an Elmont shopping center owned by the Feil Organization. The center’s tenants include TheHome Depot and Marshalls; it is located 1 mile east of Belmont Park along Hempstead Turnpike. The Elmont Target will replace an OfficeMax.

Target’s traditional stores are usually around 140,000 square feet.

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“Every big retailer is looking to find a formula to be smaller,” said Marshal Cohen, retail analyst with The NPD Group, a Port Washington-based market research company. Over the past decade, Cohen said, large retailers have begun to experiment with different formats to expand their customer bases.

By opening smaller stores, retailers like Target, Walmart and Kohl’s can get into regions lacking the space necessary for a big store, he said. It also allows the retailers to fill niches for certain products, like groceries. In 2013, Walmart opened a grocery-focused Neighborhood Market in Levittown, about one-third the size of its regular stores.

“What that does is it allows them to play in arenas they traditionally don’t play in,” Cohen said.

The new “flexible format” stores will offer a select assortment of items to reflect their smaller size, a Target spokeswoman said. They are designed to better serve denser suburban and urban markets, she said.

“New York is a priority market for Target, so we’re thrilled to have found two great store locations on Long Island,” Mark Schindele, senior vice president of properties for Target, said in a statement.

The company currently operates 19 flexible-format stores and has previously announced plans to open three more this year in New York City.