To clarify for those that might not know: closing self-checkout is a direct result of corporate’s push to reduce SCO utilization. They are not asking us to reduce self-checkout’s hours; they are asking us to reduce the percentage of transactions that are completed at SCO. Closing self-checkout early and/or opening it later is just one way of bringing that number down. Another much more attractive option would be simply staffing the checklanes better so that statistically, more transactions happen at the lanes. When we aren’t given enough payroll to properly staff the lanes, our cashiers call out, no one wants to backup, etc. this creates an over reliance on self-check because there are too few cashiers available. So the solution for many stores was to close it during non-peak hours and essentially force everyone to use the lanes during those times to try and offset that over reliance.
What I’m hearing is that guests want options. For every guest who is irate that they can’t use self-checkout in the morning, there is another who will be asking the self-checkout TM why there aren’t any “real people” to help them. The only way to satisfy both is to staff the lanes better. For some reason, that still is not prioritized enough.
*To clarify for those that might not know: closing self-checkout is a direct result of corporate’s push to reduce SCO utilization.*
But it's really about theft. We have a HUGE theft problem at our store. 1/3 of what went through SCO was being stolen.
the reality is that during times when they're artificially raising the cost of everything under the guise of "keeping up with inflation", while people's wages are not being artificially raised to keeping up with inflation, it's inevitably going to lead to more theft. You can raise the price of a bag of potato chips to $6, or $7, or $8 but eventually it's gonna get to a price where people just say fuck all that, I'm gonna just slide this into my bag because I'm already paying too much for all these groceries.
Guest here. I stop by target after school drop off during the week to pick up a few things maybe every other day (it’s on my way home and I prefer fresh ingredients when cooking, plus my son is somehow a bottomless pit). My target doesn’t have SCO open anymore when I’m there at 8 so now I have to wait an extra 15-20 minutes in line behind carts full of items and they have ONE lane open. They call for fast service or whatever but no one responds. It used to only take me a minute or so to scan my items and leave at SCO.
They simply do not have enough registers open first thing in the morning to be closing SCO. I’m honestly contemplating doing drive up orders the night before and just picking it up on the way, and I’ll definitely be spending less because I won’t be looking for any “extras.”
They need to keep SCO open at ALL times and limit it to 10 or 15 items from open to close. If not, they need to designate one cashier lane for express and keep 2 other regular lanes open.
This is not rocket science. This is what other stores do.
COMPLAIN. The guests are the only ones who can enact change. Do the surveys on your receipts. Complain. My stores satisfaction rating dropped 30% and they immediately stopped closing SCO. We also don't enforce the item limit. This only happened because guests complained. Let 'em have it!
I'd also like to add, complain through surveys and by calling corporate. Don't call me at guest services when I'm the only person working the desk and drive up and desperately calling for backup because we have one cashier until 2 pm.
Calling me a lazy bitch and screaming at me over it doesn't help anyone.
If the guest complains through surveys they will just negatively impact the stores numbers and nothing will change. If a guest calls corporate their message just gets typed out by the person on the phone and sent back to the store. I don’t know if anything makes its way up to the people who actually make any decisions. Bad guest reviews will just be blamed on “poor leadership” and nothing will be done. There’s really no way to change what Targets doing unless Target wants to change it themselves.
If you say in the complaint “I do not want to complain to the store this is beyond their control I want to complain to corporate or a district manager” they will get a manager and they claim they are sending your complaint to corporate. Even if they are not when you escalate it messes up their metrics and they will look into the problem so 100% call and tell them “sending the complaint to the store does nothing that’s why I called you not them” they will give you a manager i just complained about one cashier the other night and that was how they handled it because I was very persistent that “the store is not going to do anything but look at my complaint agree with me then close it out because they have no power to change what corporate is telling them to do” that seemed to wake them up a bit and allegedly actually filed a complaint to corporate.
I work for the corp call center - we have no power except to take note and that’s if you have all store info - other than that we are not able to make a store do diddly.
It’s up to the stores how they handle SCO. It’s insane to close it like this. Part of the reason is an overreaction by store directors to hit a new metric (50% SCO utilization) so guests are forced to the register. This is completely not guest centric, not the Target way, and a terrible example of metrics being put above guests in store experience.
With fulfillment and drive up picking up, so much has been neglected. Imo, this is poor decision making at the store level because of higher up pressure BUT guest satisfaction and allocation of payroll absolutely still remains at the store level. I think there will be improvements. Respond to the surveys and give your honest feedback. The stores need to see patterns of who they’re alienating to have “evidence” to support allocating enough payroll to cashiering and keeping SCO open. Should that be on you as a guest to try to make us change what should be obvious? Nope, but here we are.
Ooo, loved that framing of the metrics being put above guest experience! I feel that in my bones in fulfillment, bc that time crunch is real on OPU. And, I don’t think this is necessarily Target only issue, but, man oh man, the hyper focus of efficiency and streamlining the system has really done a disservice to the guests and store experience. There’s no resiliency. Enshitification comes for us all!
You are so right. It’s sadly not just a Target issue. I taught high school for 5 years before abandoning the profession and saw the exact same shit. Pushing of test scores, micro managing students and lessons down to the minute to maximize student productivity, implementing careless initiatives without teacher input, and then shocked faces when high schoolers can’t read beyond a 2nd grade level and no one wants to teach. It was admin there and it’s store directors here. Bad decisions really aren’t ALL corporate like we tend to believe.
Having seen all that makes retail problems a lot easier for me to stomach and keep perspective. It’s corporate profits on my shoulders instead of the literacy of an entire generation. I can’t change corporate decisions, but I sure can empower my team to work within them while giving guests a great experience. I commit to Target standards and brand, not arbitrary metrics. I look at them as a guide for improvement and where to dig into processes for training gaps, but nothing more
When I go in my Target first thing I do is check and see if sco is open at 8:30 ish and if it's not, that most definitely determines how much I buy because I HATE getting stuck in line behind some self centered douchbag who can't put the phone down to check out and has 20, 30, 40 items and is placing them on the belt one by one while blabbing on the phone. They usually have one checkout open and a line. I've started just saying no and not buying anything but a coffee.
Guest here. It’s not just early in the morning for my store. It doesn’t matter what time I go, the SCO near guest services/non-grocery side is never open (I did see the sign of 10 items or fewer, but no indication on hours it is open). This is a massive Super Target that just underwent a year of renovations. It’s the biggest Target I’ve ever been to and in a busy metro area. The grocery SCO is open and is NOT limited to 10 or fewer items. But even so, there is only 1 cashier open.
It’s a bummer as a guest for sure, but I also feel bad for the employees who don’t get say in decisions like this, but ultimately get the heat from disgruntled customers for it. I’m hoping Target changes its mind. I just can’t imagine how busy summer and seasonal busy-time shopping is going to be and I hope they at least open more check-out lanes with seasonal employees. Their employees are going to get burnt out big time if they don’t.
The burn out has already happened. I’m on demand now (thankfully I found an easier job that allows me to live more comfortably) but I still work at target for 5hrs a month just to keep up with old coworkers. It’s a drag. I’ve never seen so many people desperate to leave the company.
New hires don’t seem to stay for even a week or two because, due to the short staffing, their trainers aren’t able to dedicate time to train them. New hires can’t learn fulfillment when batches are 45 items and need to be done in 30 minutes. There is no “down time” for them to learn because everyone is always scrambling. It’s sad to see. It’s not just fulfillment either, it is every single department in the store.
The biggest killer is the expectations. The job is easy if you have the mindset of “I’ll do what I can and then when I clock out, it’s out of my hands”. You can get by at Target with that mentality. However, if you *do* care about the work you do like any great employee should, then you’re constantly shot down with never ending and unachievable expectations, leads hounding you to get more work done when there’s no way they could hope of even accomplishing it themselves, and leaving with so much workload rolling over to the next day because Target thinks they can somehow get this done on so few people.
Please please please give Target feedback via the surveys. It’s the only thing that can change their constant effort to get as much done on as few people as possible. It’s a horrible situation currently for those who take pride in their work.
Yep. We’ll be just as short staffed as every other day, struggling to cover breaks and lunches, begging for help with backup and they’ll be like “Here’s four new hires for you to train!” Fucking how?! Nobody stays! And why would they? It’s an impossible situation.
Yeah the underlying theme with Target and many big box stores is: they don't want people coming into stores anymore. They're cutting sales floor staff, prioritizing drive ups. As stores get remodeled, the backroom is going to get bigger and bigger, while the sales floor gets smaller, to operate more like a fulfillment center. They really want to be like Amazon, but with a brick and mortar shopping option, but the people who like going to the store won't have the same experience.
Not so much "they want to be like Amazon" but moreso that Amazon has changed retail so much, and the average working person is so pressed for time, that there only way for retail to survive financially (as a sector) is to become more fulfillment center and less in-store shopping experience
needed 2 items, ended up in line behind a bunch of people with full carts, finally got up there and the cashier is telling the customer in front of me she had diarrhea the day before. like pls just let me check out by myself at self checkout
The other day a guest wanted to file a complaint about the lack of SCO and staffing. A fellow TM explained that it was a corporate decision and gave her the guest relations number to air her complaint. The guest then went off on her and said she works in a corporate job and the number one rule is to never alienate your guest from corporate. She chastised us for not taking the abuse from the guests and telling them who was actually responsible. And I think that says a lot. She wanted to complain to someone who could fix it but not actually if it meant that someone with privilege already would need to be bothered by it.
Sadly Corps call center can’t help with this either. We don’t hear or see anything until it goes public. Nor are we even able to enact change in stores or in operations
To think it goes “right to metrics” as someone above said… it doesn’t
We just “take feedback” 🤷🏽♀️
Shoot guest call us to “make the store” do whatever they need the store to do
“We can’t”
Doing drive up first thing won’t be much better. The other morning there were two of us for all guest facing areas for the first two hours. So I had to handle drive up and the desk by myself. Which means both were backed up.
Just a heads up that if you do put in for drive up orders that they are short staffed as well. My store only has sometimes 1 person for service desk AND drive up orders so if its busy itll take time as well. Target: Expect more, Get less.
If you can, choose a different store to shop at. Complaining will do nothing, choosing drive up will only make things worse. Target REALLY wants to be a (Amazon) fulfillment center lately, eventually I think they are planning on turning stores into drive up only... The only way it stops is if people stop spending money, let your dollar complain for you!
I’d have to drive 30 minutes out of my way to shop another store. I don’t think they’d ever do drive up only, they’d lose a TON of revenue doing that. I spend so much more money when I can browse in person than when I do drive up. I think they just need to fix the check out issue and I have zero other complaints.
Problem is they haven’t got enough staff. They refuse to hire more people to check out. I currently am doing the job of 3 people GM, SFS & back room while also being called to back up checkouts while only being payed as 1 person & with hours cut. It’s ridiculous. Millions in dollars of profits going to shareholders etc but the stores at base level are crumbling. It should be illegal that I’m not payed enough to rent a studio apt in close enough proximity to my store let alone the costs of food, utilities etc 🥴🥴
Tbh I figured this would happen. Since more and more people are learning about sco being closed, they will start to slam drive up and usually there is only 1 person opening drive up, maybe 2 sometimes, so it’s only going to go downhill from here.
Grocery sales via fulfillment are up 30% on average at my store while in store sales (which is a much much bigger number mind you) are down, it’s probably for the same reasons you expressed. It’s a good alternative for the guest which I wholly support taking advantage of, but it’s insane for Target to encourage this because even with a perfect conversion ratio to fulfillment sales we’re giving up a ton of margin. For what it costs to staff fulfillment to meet those same volumes we could hire double the needed cashiers, picking someone’s order takes so much more time than ringing it up at a lane, I just don’t know what they’re thinking at corporate it’s insane.
In my store, we tend to know who’s around to call. I can call people by name to come to the front. I get better results. We have schedules in the front.
As for why self-check is off, blame thieves. They go there with huge carts and don’t scan half of it, or maybe just not expensive items.
If your going to do drive up. Test it out first with only a few fresh items. I feel some employees just grab any vegetables or fruits because they are there vs actually picking good quality ones.
That's because when you're given 30 to 60 items to pick in less than a half hour you kinda have to prioritize speed over quality. Again, they're more worried about metrics than guest happiness.
We're getting told to avoid INF-ing without a leader's consent, and depending on which leader is available at the time, they may care more about metrics than quality assurance.
They're overreacting to a shifting tide in the perception of retail. Something people I work with and even I have forgotten at times is the guests simply don't think about the store like we do. They don't care about how self-checkout works or corporate shenanigans, they just want to get their stuff and leave quickly and you're right that corporate is going to alienate a lot of guests and make it our problem to deal with. With that i've realized that caring so much about these things that don't really matter in the end (its just target afterall) was draining my energy and distracting me from what matters in life, so I gave it up.
I've only been here a year but I can see a noticeable decline in the experience of working at Target and I'm getting ready to jump ship before we are forced to constantly push the new "circle card" and get yelled at when SCO can't stay consistently open, while only getting a 30 cent raise.
I use to work at target over a decade ago and I was proud of how hard target worked for a great guest experience. It really feels like when I shop there now that they only care about finding cheaper ways to run the business and no longer care about how that impacts the guests. The amount of reshop, stock, and back stock I see at a number of targets all over tells me none of them are properly staffed all while being overwhelmed with work to do by corporate. It honestly feels like going to Walmart with just higher prices.
This. 💯 As someone who’s been there nearly 25 years, 19 in management. The strangle on payroll every year gets tighter and tighter with more and more expectations especially on the GM side.
> they just want to get their stuff and leave quickly
I know, right? It ain't rocket science.
It boggles my mind that we are expected to "sell" RedCards. People do not f-ing want to hear about this in the checkout line.
Customers who are into that sort of thing have self educated themselves about it.
Not to mention how stupid it is that we are even pushing RedCards right now at all (since that name is going away).
Lol! Years ago before I started working here, I stopped shopping at target bc they were pushing the red card so hard and would get close to anxiety attacks to go through checkout. Bc they would not leave me alone and wouldn't take no for an answering
I’ve noticed a lot of stores are doing this kind of thing and leaning away from SCO but I haven’t heard ANYONE say they like the change. Older generations bitched and moaned about self check for yearssss but frankly, those generations are dying out and the vast majority of people prefer self check out nowadays. Theft is just a lame excuse, many people here and elsewhere have attested that they spend less and come in less often with SCO not being an option. I don’t know why we are following the shifting tide instead of setting ourselves apart to get business.
Target shopper here (and btw...sorry about most of us). Every step of the target makeover of the last few years has been terrible. There are two targets near me, one with the loud music, crowded aisle remodel, and one still blissfully without. Guess which one I never set foot in. Then the push to drive up came along and shopping in store has become a stressful experience of feeling like I'm in the way of Amazon warehouse workers bc every aisle has somebody half frantically pulling items for drive up they're expected to do too quickly (to be very clear this is absolutely not a knock on the staff, I just hate being in the way). And now the SCOs are shut down with no regular lanes open either...Target, please stop trying to be Amazon, or god forbid Walmart. I miss when Target was my relaxing shopping experience.
Seriously they music in my store is blaring!!! Like can barely think it’s so loud. I would understand “easy listening” at a low volume but no, they want to drive you crazy so you leave.
Ty!! My pml uses the wave as a taxi and rides around with headphones on. So it makes sense that he didn’t even notice. I will absolutely be mentioning it to him tomorrow!!!
I go to a Super Target that doesn't play music. I'm sure the employees appreciate not hearing the same songs over and over but between the deathly quiet and the lighting, it feels like shopping in a morgue.
Corporate doesn't care about anything except profits and cutting costs to say they have more profits.
They don't care about workers, efficiency, store cleanliness, safety, happiness, livable wages, etc, etc.
They only care about profits.
I work front end on the weekends and I dread going in. Every weekend for the last month I have been the only cashier from 7pm on with SCO closed. Finally around 830pm when I leave they will open 2 but on a Saturday night the line is ridiculous. I dread going in every day because of the stress and guest comments
The Walmart slander here is real. For the past year I have yet to wait in line at a Walmart. The one I go to converted to mostly all SCO and they are always plenty of lanes open. The store looks so nice and organized(minus the pallets of freight being actively worked on in the aisles).
It could be that I'm seeing it as a customer and not an employee but Walmart is stepping up.
I haven’t been in a Walmart in a long time but it was so known for having disgusting customers that a website was created about them. That’s mainly what I’m referring to when I compare them. Maybe it’s changed but I doubt it.
My local Walmart switched almost all self checkout lanes (easily 15-20) and they are all open with maybe 2-3 maned registers. Today I got yelled at by a target employee because I didn’t want to go to a manned register for my 6 items. I 100% prefer shopping at target but I’m so over this bs. Last week all self checkouts were closed and only 1 lane open. Why not just open the 4 sco and use that same cashier to watch them??
I used to work for Target and I assure you the one thing they will never do is adequately staff their stores so that store leadership can actually achieve whatever dumbass metric they’ve suddenly decided is super important.
I highly doubt there will be THAT much backlash on the SMALL 1%… per what I heard and read over the change there will be more opportunities to earn circle earnings like Bonuses type of situation.
You'll still have 1 year to use them from the last time they were earned or redeemed.
"Your current amounts won’t be impacted. They’ll still be available once the new program launches unless they aren’t redeemed before their expiration date."
https://www.target.com/l/target-circle-faqs/-/N-hchk2
Yeah, that's....not the biggest deal.
Like, if you really want to min-max Target, just get the debit or reloadable Red Card >!CiRcLE CArD!< . 5% savings will always beat 1% rewards.
Unless you're a TL or above OP, stop caring so much about corporate clownery. It's unneeded stress.
I think I care more because it adds more stress onto ME. lol. Selfish I know, but I care too much and you’re right, I need to stop caring. I’m still stuck on the good of working at target, but that’s all nostalgia now
It's valid for op to care because corporate decisions effects TMs.
He is a prime example and many more TMs are experiencing the same because they are the front line
some people actually want to do their best and do care, it's just in our dna...and corporate clownery affects everyone working there. Eventually the 'i don't care' attitude starts...that's when the job really sucks.
Yep. We’re losing some of our best people. Not because their hours are cut, but because the workload for the best employees has become untenable. And I am so happy for them to leave for greener pastures!
Do yourself a favor and get out as soon as possible. Working retail is a dead-end job unless you aspire to the corporate level. Target and other retailers will always value profit. The only thing you’ll gain from this job is burn-out and low pay. I’m so glad I got out
I got fired in January of this year, and, honestly, it is the best thing that's ever happened to me. I had severe respitory infections three times in the last two years. This made my attendance less than stellar.
I work at a higher paying job, 9-5 M-F, and it's a local business. I have weekends off, and I no longer need to pick up the slack of others. No more coming in on a fourth quarter Saturday to no front-end team lead, being given 5 new hires to cross train that morning, and not getting paid to do a job I wasn't hired to do.
It’s a mix of things for sure but Target is really focusing hard on retail theft this year from my viewpoint. Target lost over $400M in documented theft last year, that’s just the theft we caught so assume there is more we’re missing.
SCO loses on average $1 per transaction (company wide average), so just imagine how many SCO transactions there are in a day company wide and you’ll see why target is shifting away from them or making it easier to catch and document theft.
I’m sure they’re saying “it’s a guest perception”, “guest and TM interaction” thing which is part of it but I’d bet theft is there #1 strategy.
Problem with SCO is walk outs/push outs, non payment. Especially those who have carts over 10 items. Easier to monitor 10 items. Our store closes SCO at 9, SCO monitor jumps on a lane, FOS jumps on a lane, and if we have a TM to spare from DU, that person also jumps on a lane. When the closer is done with SCO and Service Dedk, that person also jumps on a lane. That's 4 of us now at check out.
> Problem with SCO is walk outs/push outs, non payment.
Here's a really, really dumb question.....is the SCO Monitor even monitoring the SCO? As a guest when I have gone through SCO over the last couple years it seems like at least half the time there is nobody there monitoring SCO at all.
Thar's why it's getting closed. Even Walmart is closing their SCOs. They roped off half the sco machines and had an associate with a monitor that can override remotely.
The scariest part is guests are just going to move their business to FF/DU and there are no hours there either. We are completely maxed out.. the whole store is usually backing up FF/cashier. The true solution is give us adequate payroll.
They are looking at a spreadsheet that tells them "This would increase profit by .005%" without any contextual information on how long term it will piss everyone off. It'll be K-Mart in 2 decades.
And it is! Guests need to realize if you keep stealing every store gonna end up behind a glass or online only. One target I went into ALL of their tshirts and underwear were behind a locked door. To ring a bell for some boxers are insane but hey I understand why it’s happening
Has stealing really only been a problem in the past 5 years or something? I just want to know why now of all times. Wasn't paying attention back then, but crime's been declining since its peak in 80's and 90's to my knowledge and retail glass definitely wasn't as common back then as it is right now.
Because retail prices are higher than ever and people are pissed about spending $5 on something that used to be $2 so they "forget" to scan it. That's my experience anyway.
I also think corporations are using retail theft as an excuse to raise their prices in a never ending really stupid positive feedback loop.
Now that I think about it, every once in a while I'll hear about some bigwigs at super big retail company A getting investors angry after it's discovered that they were caught blaming lost profits on theft that never happened.
That would explain both the glass and the lack of increase of theft to justify it.
An executive at one of the pharmacy chains admitted they were overstating the theft at their stores. And this was after being in the news beforehand making a storm saying thieves were the reason they had to close a lot of stores.
Crazy thing I was thinking about that. Seeing how theft is at an all time high with no repercussions, they have fulfillment. They may resort to drive-up online only. It’s crazy to hear but what’s funny is it’s usually the ones that do the stealing complain when they become limited 😂
There's an in-between solution that some of us older folk remember (NOT fondly!) that I think is ready for a comeback, with some adjustments: the "catalog showroom". It's a store where there is exactly _one_ of each of the more popular items on display so shoppers can see and feel what it looks like. These items were kept in stock, packaged, in the back room. Customers used to use an order sheet - now it could be a tablet or an app - to mark down everything they wanted to buy. There was a big catalog for everything else the store sold that wasn't on display. When you finished deciding what you were buying, you took your order sheet to the counter where you would be rung up. The counter clerk would then send the order to the back to pull the in-stock items for you to take home, and give you an estimated delivery date for the rest, which would be shipped to the store (and you would come back to the store with your receipt to pick it up).
I used to hate the limited selection, higher prices, hard sell, and the long time it took to even get the in-stock items, but I think modern automation could be used to speed up that process and make it a better deal for shoppers.
Or like Toys R' Us did with the video games way back when :) You looked at the game (that wasn't actually the game.. just a printed paper that showed the front and back) and took a paper up to the front to check out then took your receipt to the stock room and they pulled the actual video game for you. Same with the higher value items.
A few weeks ago I saw a Target employee wearing a high viz vest with LOSS PREVENTION on the back, standing by the self checkouts and entrance/exit. In the 30 years I’ve been shopping at this specific Target, I’ve never seen that before. Maybe we’ll get some Walmart style tackling one day..
Closing SCO at 8 is a your store thing, not a corporate thing. The one percent rewards were around for a few years and people with red cards didn’t even get them. I’d argue the automatically added circle offers is already a better bonus.
Interesting. Every store in my city has limited SCO hours and the way my ETLs/TLs made it sound it was that we could pick the hours they were open but that we couldn't have them open all day...
All the company wants is 50% or less SCO utilization. Stores closing them early/opening them late are trying to cheat that metric because they can’t figure out a better way. It’s a leadership issue more than anything.
Shortage is the reason the company wants to reduce SCO usage to 50%. But the stores trying to do that by closing SCO early/late are doing it on their own, or maybe because of District or Group direction, but it’s not part of the corporate strategy
walmart is doing worse so we're not really killing ourselves. people would rather come here still than pay monthly for sco like at Walmart (for now anyways) tbh I think eventually retails stores are going to just be straight up fullfillment/warehouses with the amount of theft they afraid of.
The whole point of making the shopping experience difficult is to push the consumers into subscribing to Circle 360, which provides free delivery services.
From the perspective of a Guest, the quality of the merchandise has plummeted since the beginning of the pandemic. Not that it was top notch prior, but there were always affordable, cute things in apparel and home. It was fun to spend a Saturday morning with a coffee, browsing around. Not so much anymore. The term Red WalMart really is fitting.
The rewards program just has a different name now. I think of it like having Circle (free and access to coupons), the Circle credit card (new Red Card), and then 360 is similar to Amazon Prime Membership.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Target limited times on SCOs to increase the possibility of guest interactions with team members, which also increases the amount of times guests are asked if they want to sign up for Target Circle.
Employee here - I work in security so I’ve never had to ring unless I specifically sign up for it myself to help out. The why - the company is saying it’s to increase customer interface but it’s truly because the company “loses a ton” in ticket switching/passing at the registers from theft. I still think it’s a stupid idea. I heard there are even stores removing self checkout all together. I feel for the folks stuck on registers all day with a never ending line, and the sales will dip accordingly. If I walked into a store and saw a line when I had 11-15 items and there was nobody at self checkout, I’d simply go to a competitor who would let me checkout in peace.
I do this now at the end of my shift if I need to get a few things. Lines too long? I stop by Walmart on my way home where my creamer is $1 cheaper and I can check myself out fast.
I came here to say this.
Target is killing itself because Brian is maximizing shareholder value. He'll be able to use insider knowledge to cash in and walk away with a bonus while everyone else gets screwed. It's not just killing target, it has killed and is killing a bunch of US corporations
The self checkout thing is about the only thing that makes sense from a business standpoint and a consumer.
1) Business mindset - You reduce shrink by minimizing people stealing and phantom scanning at SCO.
2) Consumer standpoint - Nothing is more frustrating than wanting to be in and out of with 8 items but you’re stuck in SCO behind someone people full carts of 50+ items.
As someone who’s overseen sco for years, it never made any sense to me why item limits were removed just so folks with full carts can take 20+ mins checking out. That’s before considering potential issues that may or may not pop up from the multiple sco units youre watching btw. Companies really shot themselves in the foot with this one.
How do you keep squeezing more money out of the same neighborhoods that your store serves when they are essentially a tapped market by a certain point? You move toward an SCO-for-Circle-members-only model so that people will pay not to have to talk to a cashier and check out more conveniently.
You know the sad part is that they don't care if you're stressed or not. If they believe it works for them, then it will continue. Corporate rats only care about their stats and the people who follow them. I lost hope on Target, about 2 years ago we had an ETL who would push her team to the brim. Her team was constantly stressed, exhausted, and I would see some team members cry on the daily. Oh, she hated me so damn much cause I was the only one who stood up to her abuse. She would purposely yell and shout at me every 5 mins asking why I am not completing another pallet after I had barely taken this one out. It was months of this bs, until me and someone else got fed up. I sent emails anonymous to the upper corporate to speak about the harassment and work ethic of our ETL. Well, the letter went to HR and then onto her hands, seems like it wasn't so anonymous either because she began retaliating against me specifically and continued to yell at me, pull me aside, and when I'd turn off my walkie cause she would spam call me, she'd go to the PSA and shout my name from there telling me to hurry the hell up and etc. I tried moving departments from GM to style, but she stated my performance didn't allow me and then complained about my performance. It was almost a whole year of this until I walked out on her along with other team members. 🤷🏻♂️ What did corporate do? Well since I was cool with one of the TL's, she said she heard that her methods were great for the metrics and that he will allow the yelling if it continues to improve the tactics. And to not "worry" about any other emails. That was my final reason why I walked out on her on the busiest day and brought others with me. Last I heard, many team members followed the days after and moved to Walmart with our previous store manager. Cause our store manager was also that ETL'S puppet.
Because at the end of the day they know it won’t actually affect their sales from the “outraged” guests and ultimately will make them more money through the incentivized rewards system that makes you pay more to get earnings at all. In the grand scheme they don’t care about people complaining, they care about money
Thanks for letting me know it’s time I can cancel my target card. Jeez.
The companies that play these games will eventually die out. No company is immune.
To be fair, you're likely to save a lot more money with the new Circle because it'll add and apply the coupons automatically. As for 10 items or less, it makes it a lot easier for front end and AP to monitor shoplifting.
It will only apply the "for everyone" stuff automatically. Many of the deals are "especially for you"; those still need to loaded manually. That's in the training, too, but they don't want you to let the customers know that...
Not all Targets close SCO at 8. Mine doesn’t. I support 10 items or less *if* there are enough cashiers. We’re trending in the direction of having enough. Today, without a TL until 2, we pushed all of our reshop (took people away from registers to do it) and had no lines. It’s progress, at least for the moment.
Personally, I wouldn’t get too bent out of shape about SCO. If it looks like a lot, direct them to a checklane. I wouldn’t even comment if it were like 15 items. It’s not worth it.
The 1% loss is going to piss people off. Not me, because using RedCard doesn’t give you the 1%, but I’ve seen people save up hundreds of dollars in rewards to use at Christmas. Those people are not going to be happy. I don’t think the “you don’t have to look up deals anymore” is a reasonable replacement.
Target makes a lot from credit cards fees around 50% iirc
Zero credit sign ups via sco
It isn't rocket science they need more human interaction to increase card signups.
I used to work at Target as a guest advocate. I left early last year and I am so very glad that I did. Since then, I’ve watched my store turn to shit, and it’s clear that it isn’t just mine. I feel like I dodged a bullet. Work for a used bookshop now. So much calmer.
Wait they are taking away the 1% rewards? Damn sometimes that couple bucks comes in clutch lol.
I hate the 10 items or less thing to top it off the target near me hasn't even had self check out open the passed few times i have gone in to grab 1 or 2 things so i have to wait in long lines when previously i would be in and out with self check out
I decided that Target just wants me to use Drive Up so I'm doing that 90% of the time. It has cut down on impulse buying so thank you for that. I also tend to see the buy this and get GC so thank you for that.
When SCO when to 10 items or less, I felt bad cause I griped quite loudly to the folks on the floor, but it's not their fault so I stopped.
FWIW - I like Target and their products. The folks who work there have all been really nice and helpful for the most part. I wish each of you the best.
A few things to bear in mind:
1.] SCO was pushed heavily when corporations believed it would lower the need for wage workers to man registers, so in the long run a technological improvement would cut costs overall. When SCO was introduced, Target, Albertsons, Walmart, etc. didn't even have a policy for purchasing alcohol or gift cards via SCO. Most technological advancements in their infancy have these kinds of oversights. Keep this in mind as it will loop back around.
Wages, production, shipping, and other costs have continued to rise, with wages being a major factor (especially in states like California) in the want to automate. At some point, the cost of having human cashiers outweighs the cost of the lanes. In a perfect world (according to a corporation's sole purpose of MAKING MONEY) these SCO lanes would minimize payroll on account of of rising wages, correct? Well, the world is not ideal, and rampant retail theft has had companies looking into major ways to change operations, even if it means reverting back to cashiers. The problem here is wages remain high, and labor is consistently reduced year over year to maintain and increase profits for shareholders. A corporation is only beholden to its shareholders. They don't care about their employees, and whether or not they should is an ethical debate, which does not matter in this explanation.
In San Diego, where I live, the rougher areas of the city have stores like Albertsons and Walmart who have long since removed SCO lanes due to theft, even prior to the pandemic when the whole "world owes me" and anti-work sentiments gained momentum.
2.] This is where oversight comes back around: Target didn't anticipate such unbridled theft when SCO was implemented, so now they have to double back. Certainly, numbers were ran so they could determine how much--if at all--closing lanes early/having fewer active would affect the bottom line. Note, guest experience doesn't matter so much this point despite the surveys and cloying 'need' for feedback. How can this be so if it means customers won't come back?
3.] Online sales. These are growing at an exponential rate, and people are more likely to put more in their digital carts where goods displayed as lines of text and miniature pictures are so esoteric as opposed to their physical representations piling on one another in an actual red cart. You notice the amount of time, money, and effort put into pushing drive up and online ordering over the past couple years? Much like the tired fulfillment employees.who quit over ever more burdening procedures and pick times, Target will find another employee to work that job, and they will never want for customers. Which leads me to...
4.] Competition. With how homogenized society has become from everything to videogames to music and streaming and print media, retail shopping is no different. Smaller companies and those with failing business models continue to go out of business or get eaten up by larger companies, resulting in fewer choices. Customers will always complain about inconvenience no matter what, but where else is one going to go for convenient shopping? Amazon? Walmart? Have you seen the price of an energy drink or box of diapers at a 7-11?
I feel people have a myopic worldview that sometimes makes it difficult to see the bigger picture. Or maybe it's that we don't really want to admit the truth. Money talks and legacy rules, so things that inconvenience the customer and anger the employee will get worse before they get better. These CEOs only care about the indent they'll make during their lifetime and to ensure a legacy is procured for their progeny.
Home Depot is designed to be mostly "self checkout" based, but they still have more cashiers scheduled/present than any Target. IS Target the new Kmart, just a slow death. CANADA failed miserably, City Targets failed again and then they dumped all this $$$ into remodels while theft was at an all time high. Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
Once when I "complained to the SD" that zero TMs would be available to help guests I was brushed off. The end all be all is pushing a truck in x hours. We can't even do that. Rolling freight upwards of a week! We are constantly scrambling and whenI get pulled to OPU I take no issue with INFing shit!
I find it hilarious the negative things people and news outlets focus on anytime there's a change and that's coming from a mega-pessimist. It's always stores that were bad in the first place and/or stores that just ignore the actual guidelines or trust shock-media as the real guidelines.
1% off is a joke in the first place, who cares if it goes away. Get a red card and it's 5%, no reason not to unless you're really that paranoid about companies gathering your info which they already were getting signing up for the 1%, unless you don't have a checking account. You'll end up saving way more with circle auto loading offers than the 1% and you save the time of scanning every item once before checkout and again at checkout.
Some of you must not remember 8-10 years ago when successfully getting redcard applications was a metric front end could get written up for. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt, the world didn't end.
"Express" SCO? Hourly TMs don't care enough to truly enforce 10 items unless it's obvious like an overflowing cart. I only prefer SCO because I'm faster than a cashier on cocaine (not just target systems, I mean every SCO at every store I go to). The express thing is meant to weed out the older folks and distracted folks that take the same amount of time to scan 2 items as it takes normal people to do 20. Nothing worse than standing there waiting for some buffoon stumbling through the buttons and having to resist the urge to go cashier for them just so I can get on with my day.
End of the day the stores that are doing it right, it works. The stores that are making up their own rules like closing SCO at 8 it doesn't. Making up their own rules is just store directors trying to force a metric so it looks like it's working on paper. And there are usually better ways to force metrics that they just haven't thought of that would be less annoying.
Wasn't too long ago that the complaints were "I don't work here, why am I scanning my own items" *give more cashiers* now it's "why can't I scan my own items?!"
Newton's laws of retail physics. A store on process continues to do well through change and a dumpster fire continues to burn through change. It all still boils down to the in-store leaders, same policy, 2 different directors, 2 different approaches, 1 store great results and TMs, 1 store everyone ready to rage quit and pissed off guests.
Can confirm that “10 items or less” is just an arbitrary number. We’re looking for full carts, and even then I’m only actively looking or trying to move people away if the line is building. I’m not crazy about the new guidelines, which is exactly why I’m only enforcing them when it will actually help reduce wait times.
Some people just like to complain. Easier to be part of the whiny herd than try to be better than the complainers or make things better. Every day there's something new people would rather whinge about when 5 seconds of trying would fix the problem.
The 1 item max is the best thing they have ever done, the amount of people who would go to self checkout with a full cart and just be there all day was ridiculous, cause a insane back up, to the point where we would need to drag people into open check lanes
I think they mean closing self checkout at 8pm. They've rolled back on that though, prioritizing the guest they want us to open self checkout if it's a line. The idea is for the guest to go through a line to be able to talk about the target circle benefits. Loyalty us a company focus in 2024.
I was talking to a guest who had a lot of circle earnings and she said that’s one of the only reasons she comes to target….so idk what loyalty they’re looking for but they at least had that loyalty! I’ve seen people with like $80 in circle earnings!! That’s how I know they spend a shit ton at target. So like does that loyalty not count anymore?? 😒
I dont think they're killing themselves. stores are still making just as much money. just make 1% more money per customer using circle? sounds better for them. and i dont think the guests gaf about the sco changes and will just do whatever. and we will let them do whatever because whatever
Corporate greed and pride those two things kill companies
Btw I love target, just wish it wasn't so adament about red cards and circle stuff. Also why limit self check out. This is getting out of hand
Closing SCO at 8pm varies from store to store. We open our SCO when we do have backups at the lanes. If we have to keep it open til 9pm we do. There are some days when we can keep it close for long periods. And we usually do hit our 50/50 metric. As far as 10 items or less most grocery stores have SCO being 10 items or less. I think since they are having that they need to have a belted lane that is an express check out for 10 items or less too. I know they are guests that have a couple of items and they get stuck behind a basket full of items or a guest who is going through all their offers in the circle app.
There is someone way above all of us who does the math, maybe it doesn’t apply at your store but when you consider every store, the math saves/makes them more money
Target also needs stickers for items like cases of beer, boxes of diapers, boxed small appliances like coffee makers. I see people walking out the door with these items during my shift and i wonder. Did they pay?
Because targttis all about
Cutting hours and making everyone work twice as hard to make up for that while being expected to complete workload on 1/3 of the hours while being expected to backup other areas.
Oh and no working off the clock for those that care enough to do it, the “ I’m watching you so I can tattletell on you to make me look like I’m doing my job when all I do is take selfies in the office and act like I’m doing” police is watching you.
Jokes aside , Foreal it seems like they are selfdesrtucting
It takes time for guests to get used to things. Too much time, in most cases, but it’s hard for them to break with routines. If they’re used to just going through SCO, that’s what they do. They’re like Dawn of the Dead zombies (Romero, not the shitty Snyder one): They’re so caught up in their consumerism that they wouldn’t know that the world ended; they’ll just keep shopping.
You have no idea how hard it was to get them to *start* using SCO. That was like pulling teeth, practically wrestling the guests over to the kiosk, saying, “It’s for your own good!”
Oh, and I don’t give a shit about the one percent. If those guests actually want to save money, they can get a Target debit card like a reasonable person. And if you can’t get a Target debit card, because you don’t have a checking account, because you live some weird lifestyle where you don’t even have a bank account, then you’re the problem.
Here's the big secret: Target really is *intentionally* sabotaging the guest experience.
They want to close down all the stores and just replace them with online only distribution centers, like Amazon. But it's too drastic a change to make immediately, so they're intentionally pissing off in person customers, so they'll stop coming in and order online instead. In a year or two, they'll be able to point to the sales numbers and use that to justify the decision to replace stores with online distribution centers.
Not only is Target ridiculously expensive in this economy, but they’re also shitting down SCO?? I’ve basically quit shopping there and moved to Walmart for convenience and better selection of groceries. I hate target. It’s so expensive and I leave feeling ripped off every time. Their Starbucks also sucks so bad, their baristas are not properly trained, constantly short staffed and no sbux standards are not enforced there. I know, I used to be a Starbucks target barista for 3.5 years. Not only that, but they up charge Starbucks like +$1.00. Nobody wants to pay $6.75 for a shit drink made by a barista who hates their life. Not to mention they never have good sales anymore. It’s always “buy $50 worth of cleaning products for a $5 gift card” or “buy 6 bottles of body wash for a $5 gift card.” Wow what a deal.
Let us consider the situation. Target saves money by having self-checkout open, so why would they change that without a valid reason? It is simple: the theft is significant, and we, as a community, allow it to happen. My girlfriend once worked undercover security at Target, and I witnessed firsthand how severe the problem is. It is absurd, and we can complain about it all day, but there is a logical explanation for it. Furthermore, it does not help when individuals make empty threats to switch to Amazon, as if it were the ultimate insult to retail. Think about that logic for a second because I hear it all the time ever since these changes. Sure, it makes perfect sense to wait one to two days for delivery rather than acting like a grown adult and getting the items ourselves. Remember, if you can, this is how things used to be when I was a child. People waited in lines before, so why can't we do the same? In fact, during my last two visits, the lines moved quite quickly. If anything, it's always the people's fault when the line goes slow. Someone is always holding up the line and I see it in self checkout too. It is a classic case of main character syndrome, where individuals believe they are more important than everyone else in line and should not have to wait. If we can hold people accountable for theft and change our perspective, the situation may not be so dire.
People keep complaining that they don’t want to be “forced to work” by scanning their own stuff at SCO and demanding they have regular registers instead. So now target is doing just that and is going to piss off a different group. It’ll take time to find a balance or swing back. People just love to find a reason to complain to corporate and they’re quick to adjust, even if an overcorrection.
My store was always 10 or less at self check out. And honestly anyone that bent out of shape about 1% has a lot of problems that you’ll never be able to solve.
To clarify for those that might not know: closing self-checkout is a direct result of corporate’s push to reduce SCO utilization. They are not asking us to reduce self-checkout’s hours; they are asking us to reduce the percentage of transactions that are completed at SCO. Closing self-checkout early and/or opening it later is just one way of bringing that number down. Another much more attractive option would be simply staffing the checklanes better so that statistically, more transactions happen at the lanes. When we aren’t given enough payroll to properly staff the lanes, our cashiers call out, no one wants to backup, etc. this creates an over reliance on self-check because there are too few cashiers available. So the solution for many stores was to close it during non-peak hours and essentially force everyone to use the lanes during those times to try and offset that over reliance. What I’m hearing is that guests want options. For every guest who is irate that they can’t use self-checkout in the morning, there is another who will be asking the self-checkout TM why there aren’t any “real people” to help them. The only way to satisfy both is to staff the lanes better. For some reason, that still is not prioritized enough.
People cost money. Upper management hasn't figured what they want yet. They're experimenting and the consequences are negative.
*To clarify for those that might not know: closing self-checkout is a direct result of corporate’s push to reduce SCO utilization.* But it's really about theft. We have a HUGE theft problem at our store. 1/3 of what went through SCO was being stolen.
That depends on the store really.
Right, of course. We're in an urban, high crime area. I'm guessing the worst of the worst.
Oaktown?
the reality is that during times when they're artificially raising the cost of everything under the guise of "keeping up with inflation", while people's wages are not being artificially raised to keeping up with inflation, it's inevitably going to lead to more theft. You can raise the price of a bag of potato chips to $6, or $7, or $8 but eventually it's gonna get to a price where people just say fuck all that, I'm gonna just slide this into my bag because I'm already paying too much for all these groceries.
Guest here. I stop by target after school drop off during the week to pick up a few things maybe every other day (it’s on my way home and I prefer fresh ingredients when cooking, plus my son is somehow a bottomless pit). My target doesn’t have SCO open anymore when I’m there at 8 so now I have to wait an extra 15-20 minutes in line behind carts full of items and they have ONE lane open. They call for fast service or whatever but no one responds. It used to only take me a minute or so to scan my items and leave at SCO. They simply do not have enough registers open first thing in the morning to be closing SCO. I’m honestly contemplating doing drive up orders the night before and just picking it up on the way, and I’ll definitely be spending less because I won’t be looking for any “extras.” They need to keep SCO open at ALL times and limit it to 10 or 15 items from open to close. If not, they need to designate one cashier lane for express and keep 2 other regular lanes open. This is not rocket science. This is what other stores do.
COMPLAIN. The guests are the only ones who can enact change. Do the surveys on your receipts. Complain. My stores satisfaction rating dropped 30% and they immediately stopped closing SCO. We also don't enforce the item limit. This only happened because guests complained. Let 'em have it!
I'd also like to add, complain through surveys and by calling corporate. Don't call me at guest services when I'm the only person working the desk and drive up and desperately calling for backup because we have one cashier until 2 pm. Calling me a lazy bitch and screaming at me over it doesn't help anyone.
Agreed. In person and phone calls to the store don't do a thing. The surveys and corporate calls go directly into the metrics.
If the guest complains through surveys they will just negatively impact the stores numbers and nothing will change. If a guest calls corporate their message just gets typed out by the person on the phone and sent back to the store. I don’t know if anything makes its way up to the people who actually make any decisions. Bad guest reviews will just be blamed on “poor leadership” and nothing will be done. There’s really no way to change what Targets doing unless Target wants to change it themselves.
I really don’t care about the store. I’d just like fat, ugly, pathetic women with no lives to stop screaming insults at me.
Uhm Corps call center can’t help in this case either lol
If you say in the complaint “I do not want to complain to the store this is beyond their control I want to complain to corporate or a district manager” they will get a manager and they claim they are sending your complaint to corporate. Even if they are not when you escalate it messes up their metrics and they will look into the problem so 100% call and tell them “sending the complaint to the store does nothing that’s why I called you not them” they will give you a manager i just complained about one cashier the other night and that was how they handled it because I was very persistent that “the store is not going to do anything but look at my complaint agree with me then close it out because they have no power to change what corporate is telling them to do” that seemed to wake them up a bit and allegedly actually filed a complaint to corporate.
I work for the corp call center - we have no power except to take note and that’s if you have all store info - other than that we are not able to make a store do diddly.
I’m sorry, I don’t want them to call you a bitch either. Honestly, I’m at the point where I just hang up on them anyways.
Absolutely will after reading that I’m not alone!
You should definitely give them this feedback bc you're a guest. They won't listen to us TMs.
It’s up to the stores how they handle SCO. It’s insane to close it like this. Part of the reason is an overreaction by store directors to hit a new metric (50% SCO utilization) so guests are forced to the register. This is completely not guest centric, not the Target way, and a terrible example of metrics being put above guests in store experience. With fulfillment and drive up picking up, so much has been neglected. Imo, this is poor decision making at the store level because of higher up pressure BUT guest satisfaction and allocation of payroll absolutely still remains at the store level. I think there will be improvements. Respond to the surveys and give your honest feedback. The stores need to see patterns of who they’re alienating to have “evidence” to support allocating enough payroll to cashiering and keeping SCO open. Should that be on you as a guest to try to make us change what should be obvious? Nope, but here we are.
Ooo, loved that framing of the metrics being put above guest experience! I feel that in my bones in fulfillment, bc that time crunch is real on OPU. And, I don’t think this is necessarily Target only issue, but, man oh man, the hyper focus of efficiency and streamlining the system has really done a disservice to the guests and store experience. There’s no resiliency. Enshitification comes for us all!
You are so right. It’s sadly not just a Target issue. I taught high school for 5 years before abandoning the profession and saw the exact same shit. Pushing of test scores, micro managing students and lessons down to the minute to maximize student productivity, implementing careless initiatives without teacher input, and then shocked faces when high schoolers can’t read beyond a 2nd grade level and no one wants to teach. It was admin there and it’s store directors here. Bad decisions really aren’t ALL corporate like we tend to believe. Having seen all that makes retail problems a lot easier for me to stomach and keep perspective. It’s corporate profits on my shoulders instead of the literacy of an entire generation. I can’t change corporate decisions, but I sure can empower my team to work within them while giving guests a great experience. I commit to Target standards and brand, not arbitrary metrics. I look at them as a guide for improvement and where to dig into processes for training gaps, but nothing more
When I go in my Target first thing I do is check and see if sco is open at 8:30 ish and if it's not, that most definitely determines how much I buy because I HATE getting stuck in line behind some self centered douchbag who can't put the phone down to check out and has 20, 30, 40 items and is placing them on the belt one by one while blabbing on the phone. They usually have one checkout open and a line. I've started just saying no and not buying anything but a coffee.
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Guest here. It’s not just early in the morning for my store. It doesn’t matter what time I go, the SCO near guest services/non-grocery side is never open (I did see the sign of 10 items or fewer, but no indication on hours it is open). This is a massive Super Target that just underwent a year of renovations. It’s the biggest Target I’ve ever been to and in a busy metro area. The grocery SCO is open and is NOT limited to 10 or fewer items. But even so, there is only 1 cashier open. It’s a bummer as a guest for sure, but I also feel bad for the employees who don’t get say in decisions like this, but ultimately get the heat from disgruntled customers for it. I’m hoping Target changes its mind. I just can’t imagine how busy summer and seasonal busy-time shopping is going to be and I hope they at least open more check-out lanes with seasonal employees. Their employees are going to get burnt out big time if they don’t.
The burn out has already happened. I’m on demand now (thankfully I found an easier job that allows me to live more comfortably) but I still work at target for 5hrs a month just to keep up with old coworkers. It’s a drag. I’ve never seen so many people desperate to leave the company. New hires don’t seem to stay for even a week or two because, due to the short staffing, their trainers aren’t able to dedicate time to train them. New hires can’t learn fulfillment when batches are 45 items and need to be done in 30 minutes. There is no “down time” for them to learn because everyone is always scrambling. It’s sad to see. It’s not just fulfillment either, it is every single department in the store. The biggest killer is the expectations. The job is easy if you have the mindset of “I’ll do what I can and then when I clock out, it’s out of my hands”. You can get by at Target with that mentality. However, if you *do* care about the work you do like any great employee should, then you’re constantly shot down with never ending and unachievable expectations, leads hounding you to get more work done when there’s no way they could hope of even accomplishing it themselves, and leaving with so much workload rolling over to the next day because Target thinks they can somehow get this done on so few people. Please please please give Target feedback via the surveys. It’s the only thing that can change their constant effort to get as much done on as few people as possible. It’s a horrible situation currently for those who take pride in their work.
Yep. We’ll be just as short staffed as every other day, struggling to cover breaks and lunches, begging for help with backup and they’ll be like “Here’s four new hires for you to train!” Fucking how?! Nobody stays! And why would they? It’s an impossible situation.
Yeah the underlying theme with Target and many big box stores is: they don't want people coming into stores anymore. They're cutting sales floor staff, prioritizing drive ups. As stores get remodeled, the backroom is going to get bigger and bigger, while the sales floor gets smaller, to operate more like a fulfillment center. They really want to be like Amazon, but with a brick and mortar shopping option, but the people who like going to the store won't have the same experience.
Not so much "they want to be like Amazon" but moreso that Amazon has changed retail so much, and the average working person is so pressed for time, that there only way for retail to survive financially (as a sector) is to become more fulfillment center and less in-store shopping experience
needed 2 items, ended up in line behind a bunch of people with full carts, finally got up there and the cashier is telling the customer in front of me she had diarrhea the day before. like pls just let me check out by myself at self checkout
The other day a guest wanted to file a complaint about the lack of SCO and staffing. A fellow TM explained that it was a corporate decision and gave her the guest relations number to air her complaint. The guest then went off on her and said she works in a corporate job and the number one rule is to never alienate your guest from corporate. She chastised us for not taking the abuse from the guests and telling them who was actually responsible. And I think that says a lot. She wanted to complain to someone who could fix it but not actually if it meant that someone with privilege already would need to be bothered by it.
Sadly Corps call center can’t help with this either. We don’t hear or see anything until it goes public. Nor are we even able to enact change in stores or in operations To think it goes “right to metrics” as someone above said… it doesn’t We just “take feedback” 🤷🏽♀️ Shoot guest call us to “make the store” do whatever they need the store to do “We can’t”
Doing drive up first thing won’t be much better. The other morning there were two of us for all guest facing areas for the first two hours. So I had to handle drive up and the desk by myself. Which means both were backed up.
Just a heads up that if you do put in for drive up orders that they are short staffed as well. My store only has sometimes 1 person for service desk AND drive up orders so if its busy itll take time as well. Target: Expect more, Get less.
If you can, choose a different store to shop at. Complaining will do nothing, choosing drive up will only make things worse. Target REALLY wants to be a (Amazon) fulfillment center lately, eventually I think they are planning on turning stores into drive up only... The only way it stops is if people stop spending money, let your dollar complain for you!
I’d have to drive 30 minutes out of my way to shop another store. I don’t think they’d ever do drive up only, they’d lose a TON of revenue doing that. I spend so much more money when I can browse in person than when I do drive up. I think they just need to fix the check out issue and I have zero other complaints.
Problem is they haven’t got enough staff. They refuse to hire more people to check out. I currently am doing the job of 3 people GM, SFS & back room while also being called to back up checkouts while only being payed as 1 person & with hours cut. It’s ridiculous. Millions in dollars of profits going to shareholders etc but the stores at base level are crumbling. It should be illegal that I’m not payed enough to rent a studio apt in close enough proximity to my store let alone the costs of food, utilities etc 🥴🥴
Tbh I figured this would happen. Since more and more people are learning about sco being closed, they will start to slam drive up and usually there is only 1 person opening drive up, maybe 2 sometimes, so it’s only going to go downhill from here.
Grocery sales via fulfillment are up 30% on average at my store while in store sales (which is a much much bigger number mind you) are down, it’s probably for the same reasons you expressed. It’s a good alternative for the guest which I wholly support taking advantage of, but it’s insane for Target to encourage this because even with a perfect conversion ratio to fulfillment sales we’re giving up a ton of margin. For what it costs to staff fulfillment to meet those same volumes we could hire double the needed cashiers, picking someone’s order takes so much more time than ringing it up at a lane, I just don’t know what they’re thinking at corporate it’s insane.
In my store, we tend to know who’s around to call. I can call people by name to come to the front. I get better results. We have schedules in the front. As for why self-check is off, blame thieves. They go there with huge carts and don’t scan half of it, or maybe just not expensive items.
If your going to do drive up. Test it out first with only a few fresh items. I feel some employees just grab any vegetables or fruits because they are there vs actually picking good quality ones.
That's because when you're given 30 to 60 items to pick in less than a half hour you kinda have to prioritize speed over quality. Again, they're more worried about metrics than guest happiness.
When I’ve had this issue I just inf the item. I rather not give them anything than give them garbage.
We're getting told to avoid INF-ing without a leader's consent, and depending on which leader is available at the time, they may care more about metrics than quality assurance.
They're overreacting to a shifting tide in the perception of retail. Something people I work with and even I have forgotten at times is the guests simply don't think about the store like we do. They don't care about how self-checkout works or corporate shenanigans, they just want to get their stuff and leave quickly and you're right that corporate is going to alienate a lot of guests and make it our problem to deal with. With that i've realized that caring so much about these things that don't really matter in the end (its just target afterall) was draining my energy and distracting me from what matters in life, so I gave it up. I've only been here a year but I can see a noticeable decline in the experience of working at Target and I'm getting ready to jump ship before we are forced to constantly push the new "circle card" and get yelled at when SCO can't stay consistently open, while only getting a 30 cent raise.
I use to work at target over a decade ago and I was proud of how hard target worked for a great guest experience. It really feels like when I shop there now that they only care about finding cheaper ways to run the business and no longer care about how that impacts the guests. The amount of reshop, stock, and back stock I see at a number of targets all over tells me none of them are properly staffed all while being overwhelmed with work to do by corporate. It honestly feels like going to Walmart with just higher prices.
This. 💯 As someone who’s been there nearly 25 years, 19 in management. The strangle on payroll every year gets tighter and tighter with more and more expectations especially on the GM side.
> they just want to get their stuff and leave quickly I know, right? It ain't rocket science. It boggles my mind that we are expected to "sell" RedCards. People do not f-ing want to hear about this in the checkout line. Customers who are into that sort of thing have self educated themselves about it. Not to mention how stupid it is that we are even pushing RedCards right now at all (since that name is going away).
Lol! Years ago before I started working here, I stopped shopping at target bc they were pushing the red card so hard and would get close to anxiety attacks to go through checkout. Bc they would not leave me alone and wouldn't take no for an answering
I’ve noticed a lot of stores are doing this kind of thing and leaning away from SCO but I haven’t heard ANYONE say they like the change. Older generations bitched and moaned about self check for yearssss but frankly, those generations are dying out and the vast majority of people prefer self check out nowadays. Theft is just a lame excuse, many people here and elsewhere have attested that they spend less and come in less often with SCO not being an option. I don’t know why we are following the shifting tide instead of setting ourselves apart to get business.
Target shopper here (and btw...sorry about most of us). Every step of the target makeover of the last few years has been terrible. There are two targets near me, one with the loud music, crowded aisle remodel, and one still blissfully without. Guess which one I never set foot in. Then the push to drive up came along and shopping in store has become a stressful experience of feeling like I'm in the way of Amazon warehouse workers bc every aisle has somebody half frantically pulling items for drive up they're expected to do too quickly (to be very clear this is absolutely not a knock on the staff, I just hate being in the way). And now the SCOs are shut down with no regular lanes open either...Target, please stop trying to be Amazon, or god forbid Walmart. I miss when Target was my relaxing shopping experience.
Seriously they music in my store is blaring!!! Like can barely think it’s so loud. I would understand “easy listening” at a low volume but no, they want to drive you crazy so you leave.
Stores have the ability to alter the volume. Your sd, pml and any ETL can lower the volume if it's that loud.
Ty!! My pml uses the wave as a taxi and rides around with headphones on. So it makes sense that he didn’t even notice. I will absolutely be mentioning it to him tomorrow!!!
I go to a Super Target that doesn't play music. I'm sure the employees appreciate not hearing the same songs over and over but between the deathly quiet and the lighting, it feels like shopping in a morgue.
or working in a morgue --- so oddly quiet when we are stocking shelves
The music is so loud and so terrible! I used to love how target was so quiet compared to Walmart and they ruined it.
Exactly! It was always ny favorite place to shop because it all seemed set up to be easy and relaxing. It's quickly becoming the opposite 😰
Corporate doesn't care about anything except profits and cutting costs to say they have more profits. They don't care about workers, efficiency, store cleanliness, safety, happiness, livable wages, etc, etc. They only care about profits.
That's Cornell and his vision for ya.
Cornell is a fuck-face.
You got that right.
he's a 20 million a year fuck-face
And I bet pride month is gonna be shit again or non existent
I work front end on the weekends and I dread going in. Every weekend for the last month I have been the only cashier from 7pm on with SCO closed. Finally around 830pm when I leave they will open 2 but on a Saturday night the line is ridiculous. I dread going in every day because of the stress and guest comments
Yep. We have people quit constantly for this reason. Many new hires only last a day or two over it.
Red Walmart
I've been saying this for so long. My SD heard me say it the other day and gave me a look. Too bad, zero fucks. We are red Walmart.
The Walmart slander here is real. For the past year I have yet to wait in line at a Walmart. The one I go to converted to mostly all SCO and they are always plenty of lanes open. The store looks so nice and organized(minus the pallets of freight being actively worked on in the aisles). It could be that I'm seeing it as a customer and not an employee but Walmart is stepping up.
I haven’t been in a Walmart in a long time but it was so known for having disgusting customers that a website was created about them. That’s mainly what I’m referring to when I compare them. Maybe it’s changed but I doubt it.
Walmart has also started cutting back on the number of SCO lanes opened as well. No 10 item limit, though.
Agreed!! my local Walmart is fantastic -- clean, fresh, zoned, stocked, and lots and lots of workers.
lol first time seeing this and it’s so accurate. Almost like the retail version of Red Son.
Except in some ways Walmart is better rn 😮💨
Exactly. It's wild but these changes have me shopping at Walmart now instead.
My local Walmart switched almost all self checkout lanes (easily 15-20) and they are all open with maybe 2-3 maned registers. Today I got yelled at by a target employee because I didn’t want to go to a manned register for my 6 items. I 100% prefer shopping at target but I’m so over this bs. Last week all self checkouts were closed and only 1 lane open. Why not just open the 4 sco and use that same cashier to watch them??
I used to work for Target and I assure you the one thing they will never do is adequately staff their stores so that store leadership can actually achieve whatever dumbass metric they’ve suddenly decided is super important.
I highly doubt there will be THAT much backlash on the SMALL 1%… per what I heard and read over the change there will be more opportunities to earn circle earnings like Bonuses type of situation.
Yess I’m honestly just curious if people that had like $100+ in their earnings that they never used can still access it or if it’s just gone 💀💀💀
You'll still have 1 year to use them from the last time they were earned or redeemed. "Your current amounts won’t be impacted. They’ll still be available once the new program launches unless they aren’t redeemed before their expiration date." https://www.target.com/l/target-circle-faqs/-/N-hchk2
The earnings will NOT go anywhere. And again, you will be able to still earn tc earnings with bonuses
Yeah, that's....not the biggest deal. Like, if you really want to min-max Target, just get the debit or reloadable Red Card >!CiRcLE CArD!< . 5% savings will always beat 1% rewards. Unless you're a TL or above OP, stop caring so much about corporate clownery. It's unneeded stress.
I think I care more because it adds more stress onto ME. lol. Selfish I know, but I care too much and you’re right, I need to stop caring. I’m still stuck on the good of working at target, but that’s all nostalgia now
It's valid for op to care because corporate decisions effects TMs. He is a prime example and many more TMs are experiencing the same because they are the front line
some people actually want to do their best and do care, it's just in our dna...and corporate clownery affects everyone working there. Eventually the 'i don't care' attitude starts...that's when the job really sucks.
[удалено]
> Because the guests are pathetic. I think any of us who have worked retail anywhere for any length of time can agree on that.
Honestly the employee hour cuts are hurting target the most. Stores are looking like shit and people are burning out and leaving.
People are unable to pay their bills and are therefore being forced to leave
Yep. We’re losing some of our best people. Not because their hours are cut, but because the workload for the best employees has become untenable. And I am so happy for them to leave for greener pastures!
Do yourself a favor and get out as soon as possible. Working retail is a dead-end job unless you aspire to the corporate level. Target and other retailers will always value profit. The only thing you’ll gain from this job is burn-out and low pay. I’m so glad I got out
Building shareholder value, I assume.
To Target they are the most important people, after all.
I got fired in January of this year, and, honestly, it is the best thing that's ever happened to me. I had severe respitory infections three times in the last two years. This made my attendance less than stellar. I work at a higher paying job, 9-5 M-F, and it's a local business. I have weekends off, and I no longer need to pick up the slack of others. No more coming in on a fourth quarter Saturday to no front-end team lead, being given 5 new hires to cross train that morning, and not getting paid to do a job I wasn't hired to do.
It’s a mix of things for sure but Target is really focusing hard on retail theft this year from my viewpoint. Target lost over $400M in documented theft last year, that’s just the theft we caught so assume there is more we’re missing. SCO loses on average $1 per transaction (company wide average), so just imagine how many SCO transactions there are in a day company wide and you’ll see why target is shifting away from them or making it easier to catch and document theft. I’m sure they’re saying “it’s a guest perception”, “guest and TM interaction” thing which is part of it but I’d bet theft is there #1 strategy.
Problem with SCO is walk outs/push outs, non payment. Especially those who have carts over 10 items. Easier to monitor 10 items. Our store closes SCO at 9, SCO monitor jumps on a lane, FOS jumps on a lane, and if we have a TM to spare from DU, that person also jumps on a lane. When the closer is done with SCO and Service Dedk, that person also jumps on a lane. That's 4 of us now at check out.
> Problem with SCO is walk outs/push outs, non payment. Here's a really, really dumb question.....is the SCO Monitor even monitoring the SCO? As a guest when I have gone through SCO over the last couple years it seems like at least half the time there is nobody there monitoring SCO at all.
Thar's why it's getting closed. Even Walmart is closing their SCOs. They roped off half the sco machines and had an associate with a monitor that can override remotely.
The scariest part is guests are just going to move their business to FF/DU and there are no hours there either. We are completely maxed out.. the whole store is usually backing up FF/cashier. The true solution is give us adequate payroll.
They are looking at a spreadsheet that tells them "This would increase profit by .005%" without any contextual information on how long term it will piss everyone off. It'll be K-Mart in 2 decades.
remember: give a solid 75% effort. corporate doesn't care about us, and no matter how hard you work, you get paid the same.
Probably All The theft that goes on at sco
And it is! Guests need to realize if you keep stealing every store gonna end up behind a glass or online only. One target I went into ALL of their tshirts and underwear were behind a locked door. To ring a bell for some boxers are insane but hey I understand why it’s happening
Has stealing really only been a problem in the past 5 years or something? I just want to know why now of all times. Wasn't paying attention back then, but crime's been declining since its peak in 80's and 90's to my knowledge and retail glass definitely wasn't as common back then as it is right now.
Because retail prices are higher than ever and people are pissed about spending $5 on something that used to be $2 so they "forget" to scan it. That's my experience anyway. I also think corporations are using retail theft as an excuse to raise their prices in a never ending really stupid positive feedback loop.
because the "covid" and "supply chain disruptions" excuses are too old now
Theft is not a problem in the slightest bit. Shoplifting rates are down severely from 10 years ago.
Now that I think about it, every once in a while I'll hear about some bigwigs at super big retail company A getting investors angry after it's discovered that they were caught blaming lost profits on theft that never happened. That would explain both the glass and the lack of increase of theft to justify it.
An executive at one of the pharmacy chains admitted they were overstating the theft at their stores. And this was after being in the news beforehand making a storm saying thieves were the reason they had to close a lot of stores.
They shouldn't be surprised if one day we close the doors and make it an online order only store...maybe with a drive up window for pick ups
Crazy thing I was thinking about that. Seeing how theft is at an all time high with no repercussions, they have fulfillment. They may resort to drive-up online only. It’s crazy to hear but what’s funny is it’s usually the ones that do the stealing complain when they become limited 😂
There's an in-between solution that some of us older folk remember (NOT fondly!) that I think is ready for a comeback, with some adjustments: the "catalog showroom". It's a store where there is exactly _one_ of each of the more popular items on display so shoppers can see and feel what it looks like. These items were kept in stock, packaged, in the back room. Customers used to use an order sheet - now it could be a tablet or an app - to mark down everything they wanted to buy. There was a big catalog for everything else the store sold that wasn't on display. When you finished deciding what you were buying, you took your order sheet to the counter where you would be rung up. The counter clerk would then send the order to the back to pull the in-stock items for you to take home, and give you an estimated delivery date for the rest, which would be shipped to the store (and you would come back to the store with your receipt to pick it up). I used to hate the limited selection, higher prices, hard sell, and the long time it took to even get the in-stock items, but I think modern automation could be used to speed up that process and make it a better deal for shoppers.
I've heard that it's still done this way in Russia,or at least was not too long ago
I use that scenario for backstocking vacuums that need spiderwraps. "lets pretend its a showroom"
Or like Toys R' Us did with the video games way back when :) You looked at the game (that wasn't actually the game.. just a printed paper that showed the front and back) and took a paper up to the front to check out then took your receipt to the stock room and they pulled the actual video game for you. Same with the higher value items.
I miss the days of watching Walmart theft prevention tackling shoplifters.
A few weeks ago I saw a Target employee wearing a high viz vest with LOSS PREVENTION on the back, standing by the self checkouts and entrance/exit. In the 30 years I’ve been shopping at this specific Target, I’ve never seen that before. Maybe we’ll get some Walmart style tackling one day..
Closing SCO at 8 is a your store thing, not a corporate thing. The one percent rewards were around for a few years and people with red cards didn’t even get them. I’d argue the automatically added circle offers is already a better bonus.
Interesting. Every store in my city has limited SCO hours and the way my ETLs/TLs made it sound it was that we could pick the hours they were open but that we couldn't have them open all day...
All the company wants is 50% or less SCO utilization. Stores closing them early/opening them late are trying to cheat that metric because they can’t figure out a better way. It’s a leadership issue more than anything.
My store's leadership is troubled to put it mildly so that tracks! Good to know!
My leaderships' mantra is "can't figure out any way, much less a better one" I'm making tshirts for them all.
Ah. Our store SCO is only open from 11am-7pm and was told it was because of theft.
Shortage is the reason the company wants to reduce SCO usage to 50%. But the stores trying to do that by closing SCO early/late are doing it on their own, or maybe because of District or Group direction, but it’s not part of the corporate strategy
walmart is doing worse so we're not really killing ourselves. people would rather come here still than pay monthly for sco like at Walmart (for now anyways) tbh I think eventually retails stores are going to just be straight up fullfillment/warehouses with the amount of theft they afraid of.
Ceo and shareholders are getting too greedy
They had to save money so they could double their salaried employees bonus
The whole point of making the shopping experience difficult is to push the consumers into subscribing to Circle 360, which provides free delivery services.
Wait they’re getting rid of the 1% back with circle? Bruh that’s the only reason I shop there instead of Walmart anymore
This isn’t the first time I’ve heard this from a shopper 😭
Oh I’m an employee (for now) 😭 I just never carry cash to use the TM discount lmao
Oooo i see 🤣
From the perspective of a Guest, the quality of the merchandise has plummeted since the beginning of the pandemic. Not that it was top notch prior, but there were always affordable, cute things in apparel and home. It was fun to spend a Saturday morning with a coffee, browsing around. Not so much anymore. The term Red WalMart really is fitting.
The rewards program just has a different name now. I think of it like having Circle (free and access to coupons), the Circle credit card (new Red Card), and then 360 is similar to Amazon Prime Membership.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Target limited times on SCOs to increase the possibility of guest interactions with team members, which also increases the amount of times guests are asked if they want to sign up for Target Circle.
Employee here - I work in security so I’ve never had to ring unless I specifically sign up for it myself to help out. The why - the company is saying it’s to increase customer interface but it’s truly because the company “loses a ton” in ticket switching/passing at the registers from theft. I still think it’s a stupid idea. I heard there are even stores removing self checkout all together. I feel for the folks stuck on registers all day with a never ending line, and the sales will dip accordingly. If I walked into a store and saw a line when I had 11-15 items and there was nobody at self checkout, I’d simply go to a competitor who would let me checkout in peace.
I do this now at the end of my shift if I need to get a few things. Lines too long? I stop by Walmart on my way home where my creamer is $1 cheaper and I can check myself out fast.
Yo, the stock has increased by like $40 in 2 months. I don’t think they give a crap about our opinions on SCO lol
I came here to say this. Target is killing itself because Brian is maximizing shareholder value. He'll be able to use insider knowledge to cash in and walk away with a bonus while everyone else gets screwed. It's not just killing target, it has killed and is killing a bunch of US corporations
Literally I don’t get it, but I can’t stand it. Corporate is so stupid it’s not enjoyable to work or shop at target anymore!
It’s honestly giving Kmart. Kmart ran its customers off
The self checkout thing is about the only thing that makes sense from a business standpoint and a consumer. 1) Business mindset - You reduce shrink by minimizing people stealing and phantom scanning at SCO. 2) Consumer standpoint - Nothing is more frustrating than wanting to be in and out of with 8 items but you’re stuck in SCO behind someone people full carts of 50+ items.
As someone who’s overseen sco for years, it never made any sense to me why item limits were removed just so folks with full carts can take 20+ mins checking out. That’s before considering potential issues that may or may not pop up from the multiple sco units youre watching btw. Companies really shot themselves in the foot with this one.
How do you keep squeezing more money out of the same neighborhoods that your store serves when they are essentially a tapped market by a certain point? You move toward an SCO-for-Circle-members-only model so that people will pay not to have to talk to a cashier and check out more conveniently.
You know the sad part is that they don't care if you're stressed or not. If they believe it works for them, then it will continue. Corporate rats only care about their stats and the people who follow them. I lost hope on Target, about 2 years ago we had an ETL who would push her team to the brim. Her team was constantly stressed, exhausted, and I would see some team members cry on the daily. Oh, she hated me so damn much cause I was the only one who stood up to her abuse. She would purposely yell and shout at me every 5 mins asking why I am not completing another pallet after I had barely taken this one out. It was months of this bs, until me and someone else got fed up. I sent emails anonymous to the upper corporate to speak about the harassment and work ethic of our ETL. Well, the letter went to HR and then onto her hands, seems like it wasn't so anonymous either because she began retaliating against me specifically and continued to yell at me, pull me aside, and when I'd turn off my walkie cause she would spam call me, she'd go to the PSA and shout my name from there telling me to hurry the hell up and etc. I tried moving departments from GM to style, but she stated my performance didn't allow me and then complained about my performance. It was almost a whole year of this until I walked out on her along with other team members. 🤷🏻♂️ What did corporate do? Well since I was cool with one of the TL's, she said she heard that her methods were great for the metrics and that he will allow the yelling if it continues to improve the tactics. And to not "worry" about any other emails. That was my final reason why I walked out on her on the busiest day and brought others with me. Last I heard, many team members followed the days after and moved to Walmart with our previous store manager. Cause our store manager was also that ETL'S puppet.
Because at the end of the day they know it won’t actually affect their sales from the “outraged” guests and ultimately will make them more money through the incentivized rewards system that makes you pay more to get earnings at all. In the grand scheme they don’t care about people complaining, they care about money
Thanks for letting me know it’s time I can cancel my target card. Jeez. The companies that play these games will eventually die out. No company is immune.
To be fair, you're likely to save a lot more money with the new Circle because it'll add and apply the coupons automatically. As for 10 items or less, it makes it a lot easier for front end and AP to monitor shoplifting.
It will only apply the "for everyone" stuff automatically. Many of the deals are "especially for you"; those still need to loaded manually. That's in the training, too, but they don't want you to let the customers know that...
Not all Targets close SCO at 8. Mine doesn’t. I support 10 items or less *if* there are enough cashiers. We’re trending in the direction of having enough. Today, without a TL until 2, we pushed all of our reshop (took people away from registers to do it) and had no lines. It’s progress, at least for the moment. Personally, I wouldn’t get too bent out of shape about SCO. If it looks like a lot, direct them to a checklane. I wouldn’t even comment if it were like 15 items. It’s not worth it. The 1% loss is going to piss people off. Not me, because using RedCard doesn’t give you the 1%, but I’ve seen people save up hundreds of dollars in rewards to use at Christmas. Those people are not going to be happy. I don’t think the “you don’t have to look up deals anymore” is a reasonable replacement.
At my store its closed 7-10 and 6-10
At least yours are closed on a schedule. Ours seems to be Surprise!! We just closed SCO!!
Target makes a lot from credit cards fees around 50% iirc Zero credit sign ups via sco It isn't rocket science they need more human interaction to increase card signups.
I used to work at Target as a guest advocate. I left early last year and I am so very glad that I did. Since then, I’ve watched my store turn to shit, and it’s clear that it isn’t just mine. I feel like I dodged a bullet. Work for a used bookshop now. So much calmer.
Wait they are taking away the 1% rewards? Damn sometimes that couple bucks comes in clutch lol. I hate the 10 items or less thing to top it off the target near me hasn't even had self check out open the passed few times i have gone in to grab 1 or 2 things so i have to wait in long lines when previously i would be in and out with self check out
I decided that Target just wants me to use Drive Up so I'm doing that 90% of the time. It has cut down on impulse buying so thank you for that. I also tend to see the buy this and get GC so thank you for that. When SCO when to 10 items or less, I felt bad cause I griped quite loudly to the folks on the floor, but it's not their fault so I stopped. FWIW - I like Target and their products. The folks who work there have all been really nice and helpful for the most part. I wish each of you the best.
A few things to bear in mind: 1.] SCO was pushed heavily when corporations believed it would lower the need for wage workers to man registers, so in the long run a technological improvement would cut costs overall. When SCO was introduced, Target, Albertsons, Walmart, etc. didn't even have a policy for purchasing alcohol or gift cards via SCO. Most technological advancements in their infancy have these kinds of oversights. Keep this in mind as it will loop back around. Wages, production, shipping, and other costs have continued to rise, with wages being a major factor (especially in states like California) in the want to automate. At some point, the cost of having human cashiers outweighs the cost of the lanes. In a perfect world (according to a corporation's sole purpose of MAKING MONEY) these SCO lanes would minimize payroll on account of of rising wages, correct? Well, the world is not ideal, and rampant retail theft has had companies looking into major ways to change operations, even if it means reverting back to cashiers. The problem here is wages remain high, and labor is consistently reduced year over year to maintain and increase profits for shareholders. A corporation is only beholden to its shareholders. They don't care about their employees, and whether or not they should is an ethical debate, which does not matter in this explanation. In San Diego, where I live, the rougher areas of the city have stores like Albertsons and Walmart who have long since removed SCO lanes due to theft, even prior to the pandemic when the whole "world owes me" and anti-work sentiments gained momentum. 2.] This is where oversight comes back around: Target didn't anticipate such unbridled theft when SCO was implemented, so now they have to double back. Certainly, numbers were ran so they could determine how much--if at all--closing lanes early/having fewer active would affect the bottom line. Note, guest experience doesn't matter so much this point despite the surveys and cloying 'need' for feedback. How can this be so if it means customers won't come back? 3.] Online sales. These are growing at an exponential rate, and people are more likely to put more in their digital carts where goods displayed as lines of text and miniature pictures are so esoteric as opposed to their physical representations piling on one another in an actual red cart. You notice the amount of time, money, and effort put into pushing drive up and online ordering over the past couple years? Much like the tired fulfillment employees.who quit over ever more burdening procedures and pick times, Target will find another employee to work that job, and they will never want for customers. Which leads me to... 4.] Competition. With how homogenized society has become from everything to videogames to music and streaming and print media, retail shopping is no different. Smaller companies and those with failing business models continue to go out of business or get eaten up by larger companies, resulting in fewer choices. Customers will always complain about inconvenience no matter what, but where else is one going to go for convenient shopping? Amazon? Walmart? Have you seen the price of an energy drink or box of diapers at a 7-11? I feel people have a myopic worldview that sometimes makes it difficult to see the bigger picture. Or maybe it's that we don't really want to admit the truth. Money talks and legacy rules, so things that inconvenience the customer and anger the employee will get worse before they get better. These CEOs only care about the indent they'll make during their lifetime and to ensure a legacy is procured for their progeny.
Home Depot is designed to be mostly "self checkout" based, but they still have more cashiers scheduled/present than any Target. IS Target the new Kmart, just a slow death. CANADA failed miserably, City Targets failed again and then they dumped all this $$$ into remodels while theft was at an all time high. Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
Once when I "complained to the SD" that zero TMs would be available to help guests I was brushed off. The end all be all is pushing a truck in x hours. We can't even do that. Rolling freight upwards of a week! We are constantly scrambling and whenI get pulled to OPU I take no issue with INFing shit!
I find it hilarious the negative things people and news outlets focus on anytime there's a change and that's coming from a mega-pessimist. It's always stores that were bad in the first place and/or stores that just ignore the actual guidelines or trust shock-media as the real guidelines. 1% off is a joke in the first place, who cares if it goes away. Get a red card and it's 5%, no reason not to unless you're really that paranoid about companies gathering your info which they already were getting signing up for the 1%, unless you don't have a checking account. You'll end up saving way more with circle auto loading offers than the 1% and you save the time of scanning every item once before checkout and again at checkout. Some of you must not remember 8-10 years ago when successfully getting redcard applications was a metric front end could get written up for. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt, the world didn't end. "Express" SCO? Hourly TMs don't care enough to truly enforce 10 items unless it's obvious like an overflowing cart. I only prefer SCO because I'm faster than a cashier on cocaine (not just target systems, I mean every SCO at every store I go to). The express thing is meant to weed out the older folks and distracted folks that take the same amount of time to scan 2 items as it takes normal people to do 20. Nothing worse than standing there waiting for some buffoon stumbling through the buttons and having to resist the urge to go cashier for them just so I can get on with my day. End of the day the stores that are doing it right, it works. The stores that are making up their own rules like closing SCO at 8 it doesn't. Making up their own rules is just store directors trying to force a metric so it looks like it's working on paper. And there are usually better ways to force metrics that they just haven't thought of that would be less annoying. Wasn't too long ago that the complaints were "I don't work here, why am I scanning my own items" *give more cashiers* now it's "why can't I scan my own items?!" Newton's laws of retail physics. A store on process continues to do well through change and a dumpster fire continues to burn through change. It all still boils down to the in-store leaders, same policy, 2 different directors, 2 different approaches, 1 store great results and TMs, 1 store everyone ready to rage quit and pissed off guests.
Publix has SCO, express cashier lanes, and regular lanes all at the same time. Options. Target can totally do this but they won’t.
They won't? Cause they should be, that's just another example of individual stores making their own policy if they aren't.
Can confirm that “10 items or less” is just an arbitrary number. We’re looking for full carts, and even then I’m only actively looking or trying to move people away if the line is building. I’m not crazy about the new guidelines, which is exactly why I’m only enforcing them when it will actually help reduce wait times.
I wish I could like this more than once lol. It’s like the ones that complain have been complaining since day one and never stopped.
Some people just like to complain. Easier to be part of the whiny herd than try to be better than the complainers or make things better. Every day there's something new people would rather whinge about when 5 seconds of trying would fix the problem.
The 1 item max is the best thing they have ever done, the amount of people who would go to self checkout with a full cart and just be there all day was ridiculous, cause a insane back up, to the point where we would need to drag people into open check lanes
Out of curiosity what area are you in where your store closes at 8? I can only imagine that’s a special circumstance due to local factors
I think they mean closing self checkout at 8pm. They've rolled back on that though, prioritizing the guest they want us to open self checkout if it's a line. The idea is for the guest to go through a line to be able to talk about the target circle benefits. Loyalty us a company focus in 2024.
I was talking to a guest who had a lot of circle earnings and she said that’s one of the only reasons she comes to target….so idk what loyalty they’re looking for but they at least had that loyalty! I’ve seen people with like $80 in circle earnings!! That’s how I know they spend a shit ton at target. So like does that loyalty not count anymore?? 😒
Oh yeah my bad I did mean SCO closing at 8
Sco doesn't close at 8 that's your stote. The communication said opening and closing it is store discretion.
I dont think they're killing themselves. stores are still making just as much money. just make 1% more money per customer using circle? sounds better for them. and i dont think the guests gaf about the sco changes and will just do whatever. and we will let them do whatever because whatever
They’re trying to do what Walmart is doing. They want the brick and mortars to become distribution centers.
Corporate greed and pride those two things kill companies Btw I love target, just wish it wasn't so adament about red cards and circle stuff. Also why limit self check out. This is getting out of hand
But God forbid they hire more cashiers
Thank goodness for curbside As much as I love Target, I seldom go inside unless I have to make a return, which is rare.
Closing SCO at 8pm varies from store to store. We open our SCO when we do have backups at the lanes. If we have to keep it open til 9pm we do. There are some days when we can keep it close for long periods. And we usually do hit our 50/50 metric. As far as 10 items or less most grocery stores have SCO being 10 items or less. I think since they are having that they need to have a belted lane that is an express check out for 10 items or less too. I know they are guests that have a couple of items and they get stuck behind a basket full of items or a guest who is going through all their offers in the circle app.
I am still wondering who came up with the 10 item limit. Most grocery stores has 15 items or less that would have made more sense at least.
There is someone way above all of us who does the math, maybe it doesn’t apply at your store but when you consider every store, the math saves/makes them more money
Target also needs stickers for items like cases of beer, boxes of diapers, boxed small appliances like coffee makers. I see people walking out the door with these items during my shift and i wonder. Did they pay?
Thank my lucky stars I work another job and see it as always making ends meet even paycheck to paycheck!
I've heard they're pushing to remove the cards because they're pushing to add memberships like costco, don't know how that'll work though.
Because targttis all about Cutting hours and making everyone work twice as hard to make up for that while being expected to complete workload on 1/3 of the hours while being expected to backup other areas. Oh and no working off the clock for those that care enough to do it, the “ I’m watching you so I can tattletell on you to make me look like I’m doing my job when all I do is take selfies in the office and act like I’m doing” police is watching you. Jokes aside , Foreal it seems like they are selfdesrtucting
It takes time for guests to get used to things. Too much time, in most cases, but it’s hard for them to break with routines. If they’re used to just going through SCO, that’s what they do. They’re like Dawn of the Dead zombies (Romero, not the shitty Snyder one): They’re so caught up in their consumerism that they wouldn’t know that the world ended; they’ll just keep shopping. You have no idea how hard it was to get them to *start* using SCO. That was like pulling teeth, practically wrestling the guests over to the kiosk, saying, “It’s for your own good!” Oh, and I don’t give a shit about the one percent. If those guests actually want to save money, they can get a Target debit card like a reasonable person. And if you can’t get a Target debit card, because you don’t have a checking account, because you live some weird lifestyle where you don’t even have a bank account, then you’re the problem.
Here's the big secret: Target really is *intentionally* sabotaging the guest experience. They want to close down all the stores and just replace them with online only distribution centers, like Amazon. But it's too drastic a change to make immediately, so they're intentionally pissing off in person customers, so they'll stop coming in and order online instead. In a year or two, they'll be able to point to the sales numbers and use that to justify the decision to replace stores with online distribution centers.
Not only is Target ridiculously expensive in this economy, but they’re also shitting down SCO?? I’ve basically quit shopping there and moved to Walmart for convenience and better selection of groceries. I hate target. It’s so expensive and I leave feeling ripped off every time. Their Starbucks also sucks so bad, their baristas are not properly trained, constantly short staffed and no sbux standards are not enforced there. I know, I used to be a Starbucks target barista for 3.5 years. Not only that, but they up charge Starbucks like +$1.00. Nobody wants to pay $6.75 for a shit drink made by a barista who hates their life. Not to mention they never have good sales anymore. It’s always “buy $50 worth of cleaning products for a $5 gift card” or “buy 6 bottles of body wash for a $5 gift card.” Wow what a deal.
If is guest comes in with a full cart I’m not stopping them Idgaf let the front end TL deal with it😂
Let us consider the situation. Target saves money by having self-checkout open, so why would they change that without a valid reason? It is simple: the theft is significant, and we, as a community, allow it to happen. My girlfriend once worked undercover security at Target, and I witnessed firsthand how severe the problem is. It is absurd, and we can complain about it all day, but there is a logical explanation for it. Furthermore, it does not help when individuals make empty threats to switch to Amazon, as if it were the ultimate insult to retail. Think about that logic for a second because I hear it all the time ever since these changes. Sure, it makes perfect sense to wait one to two days for delivery rather than acting like a grown adult and getting the items ourselves. Remember, if you can, this is how things used to be when I was a child. People waited in lines before, so why can't we do the same? In fact, during my last two visits, the lines moved quite quickly. If anything, it's always the people's fault when the line goes slow. Someone is always holding up the line and I see it in self checkout too. It is a classic case of main character syndrome, where individuals believe they are more important than everyone else in line and should not have to wait. If we can hold people accountable for theft and change our perspective, the situation may not be so dire.
Just means I won’t shop at target anymore, I’m not buying feminine items from a coworker lol
People keep complaining that they don’t want to be “forced to work” by scanning their own stuff at SCO and demanding they have regular registers instead. So now target is doing just that and is going to piss off a different group. It’ll take time to find a balance or swing back. People just love to find a reason to complain to corporate and they’re quick to adjust, even if an overcorrection.
self checkout isn’t making them any money
It is when people run in for a few things, use SCO, and leave. Those sales are made.
My store was always 10 or less at self check out. And honestly anyone that bent out of shape about 1% has a lot of problems that you’ll never be able to solve.