'Target CEO claims customers are saying ‘a big thank you’ for locking up merchandise'

[ClownLoach]

Target needs to realize that it should not be treating CVS employees as enemies. A pharmacist is constantly asked for recommendations throughout the day by customers.

A pharmacist can either recommend over the counter medications from Target or tell the customer that prescription medication is better.

Target could lose out on thousands of dollars a day. Vitamins, cough syrups, cold remedies, nasal rinses, nasal sprays, etc. We all know that if the pharmacist encourages these sales, Target would make more money. If the pharmacist hates Target, the pharmacist can tell the truth and say none of these over the counter remedies will work. You need prescription antibiotics, prescription sleep medication, or prescription cholesterol medication.

It was a mistake to introduce CVS inside of Target where the employees compete with each other for the customer's money. The pharmacist would push for prescription medication and vaccines sold by CVS instead of recommending something sold by Target.

There is still a small assortment of over the counter drugs sold by CVS that even have CVS price tags behind the counter. I suspect that the CVS employees are told to push what little they sell there which is competing product. I just do not see the harm in letting the CVS employees use the break room, employee restrooms (Target has full sets of them which may be closer to the pharmacy in many cases), and give them a damned employee discount card because they are part of the store. It's like two penny pinching companies both deciding on how they can make the employees as miserable as possible. I get it if they could only use the discount card at their own location vs. nationwide like other Target employees, but do something to bring people together.

Not all new Target stores are opening with pharmacies, which is a deviation from the original small-format model where they would all have a CVS pharmacy counter. Long Beach small format opened without it, and then the full size CVS (former Longs) in their parking lot was permanently closed (and now the 3 closest Rite Aid stores are also gone). I think Santa Barbara didn't get the pharmacy either in the funky little two story location there.

[storewanderer]

Target needs to realize that it should not be treating CVS employees as enemies. A pharmacist is constantly asked for recommendations throughout the day by customers.

A pharmacist can either recommend over the counter medications from Target or tell the customer that prescription medication is better.

Target could lose out on thousands of dollars a day. Vitamins, cough syrups, cold remedies, nasal rinses, nasal sprays, etc. We all know that if the pharmacist encourages these sales, Target would make more money. If the pharmacist hates Target, the pharmacist can tell the truth and say none of these over the counter remedies will work. You need prescription antibiotics, prescription sleep medication, or prescription cholesterol medication.

It was a mistake to introduce CVS inside of Target where the employees compete with each other for the customer's money. The pharmacist would push for prescription medication and vaccines sold by CVS instead of recommending something sold by Target.

There is still a small assortment of over the counter drugs sold by CVS that even have CVS price tags behind the counter. I suspect that the CVS employees are told to push what little they sell there which is competing product. I just do not see the harm in letting the CVS employees use the break room, employee restrooms (Target has full sets of them which may be closer to the pharmacy in many cases), and give them a damned employee discount card because they are part of the store. It's like two penny pinching companies both deciding on how they can make the employees as miserable as possible. I get it if they could only use the discount card at their own location vs. nationwide like other Target employees, but do something to bring people together.

Not all new Target stores are opening with pharmacies, which is a deviation from the original small-format model where they would all have a CVS pharmacy counter. Long Beach small format opened without it, and then the full size CVS (former Longs) in their parking lot was permanently closed (and now the 3 closest Rite Aid stores are also gone). I think Santa Barbara didn't get the pharmacy either in the funky little two story location there.

When CVS and Target first got involved with each other there were a lot of rumors that they would expand the relationship. Things like putting CVS in charge of the entire OTC program at Target, or putting Target in charge of the seasonal departments (or even more of the front end) at CVS units... but none of it ever happened.

I understand the access restrictions to a point. For instance those employees who work in haircut, tenant fast food, whatever inside Wal Mart are not allowed access to any Wal Mart employees only areas either. But those employees don't work through a Wal Mart cash register either... and physically those tenants are separate (obviously) and not really part of the store. The CVS inside Target seems like it is a part of Target, not a separate tenant.

Now some Wal Mart vision centers are run by some other company. As I recall those do use Wal Mart's registers, did cash management through Wal Mart, and the people who worked there basically functioned as if they were a Wal Mart employee. I'm not sure if they got an employee discount or not. I think Wal Mart is trying to get the vision centers back and I'm not clear what happens to the employees in that process.

Really I think it should go a step further and the CVS inside Target should be completely separate. Position it like a tenant space away from the Target sales floor. Do not have a Target cash register there- put CVS cash registers in, let CVS handle everything to do with those spaces including cash management, have its own time clock, everything. Physically put it so it is "past" the Target checkout so nobody will be trying to take Target merchandise there to pay for it. Do something so the Target and CVS management do not have to "deal with each other" regarding things like cash management, breakroom issues, price overrides, and their only interactions are a friendly hello and goodbye as they pass each other.

[Alpha8472]

The CVS pharmacies at my local Target stores don't have bathrooms. The pharmacists and other CVS employees have to leave the pharmacy to go to the restroom. That means if there is only 1 pharmacist, the pharmacy has to technically close when the pharmacist leaves to go to the restroom.

The Walmart stores with Vision Centers run by an outside company have employees that don't get the Walmart discount. Those independent Vision Centers cannot ring up Walmart merchandise. These Vision Centers have their own backrooms which are used as breakrooms.

Walmart is trying to recruit those independent employees as they take back the Vision Centers around February 24, 2024.

[veteran+]

So, in these scenarios, where do these employees of CVS, et al go to the bathroom and how far is that?

Do they have their own bathroom inside the store?

[BillyGr]

So, in these scenarios, where do these employees of CVS, et al go to the bathroom and how far is that?

Do they have their own bathroom inside the store?

Probably wherever anyone else in the store would go - many times the restrooms are near the front entry for public use.

[storewanderer]

So, in these scenarios, where do these employees of CVS, et al go to the bathroom and how far is that?

Do they have their own bathroom inside the store?

In some states it is state law to have a bathroom back in the pharmacy. If not then they just walk out of pharmacy and go to the public customer restrooms.

It is a moot point in my area since the state law requires a bathroom in the pharmacy.

But in the case of these stores the former Greatland unit the public customer public restroom is closer than the employee restroom to the pharmacy. In the case of the newer unit in Sparks it is the opposite the employee restroom and break room are practically right next to pharmacy but the customer restroom is a 1 or 2 minute walk.

Another issue may be CVS sends employees floating around stores due to its ongoing understaffed condition so with so many people not positioned 100% at Target, Target may find it difficult to give a bunch of random floater employees access to their employees only areas.

[ClownLoach]

So, in these scenarios, where do these employees of CVS, et al go to the bathroom and how far is that?

Do they have their own bathroom inside the store?

In some states it is state law to have a bathroom back in the pharmacy. If not then they just walk out of pharmacy and go to the public customer restrooms.

It is a moot point in my area since the state law requires a bathroom in the pharmacy.

But in the case of these stores the former Greatland unit the public customer public restroom is closer than the employee restroom to the pharmacy. In the case of the newer unit in Sparks it is the opposite the employee restroom and break room are practically right next to pharmacy but the customer restroom is a 1 or 2 minute walk.

Another issue may be CVS sends employees floating around stores due to its ongoing understaffed condition so with so many people not positioned 100% at Target, Target may find it difficult to give a bunch of random floater employees access to their employees only areas.

I did notice that one SuperTarget location near me has a single customer restroom right next to the pharmacy, which in that format is a freestanding structure in the middle of the sales floor. The pharmacist would still have to exit the pharmacy counter area entirely to use it.

If Target can give out register numbers to each visiting employee then they can give the break room code too. If it's a visiting employee I can see it stopping there, but if it's the pharmacist or a permanent assigned employee I still think they should get a discount card. They frequently get asked questions about location of merchandise storewide.

[storewanderer]

I did notice that one SuperTarget location near me has a single customer restroom right next to the pharmacy, which in that format is a freestanding structure in the middle of the sales floor. The pharmacist would still have to exit the pharmacy counter area entirely to use it.

If Target can give out register numbers to each visiting employee then they can give the break room code too. If it's a visiting employee I can see it stopping there, but if it's the pharmacist or a permanent assigned employee I still think they should get a discount card. They frequently get asked questions about location of merchandise storewide.

They may not give a register login to the visiting employees. They may operate with a "floater" login or similar. I think CVS still does that where there is a known register login that floating employees use that can work in every store (let's say it is operator 111 with password 111). Various pharmacy chains used to have this; Walgreens, Longs, etc.

[ClownLoach]

I did notice that one SuperTarget location near me has a single customer restroom right next to the pharmacy, which in that format is a freestanding structure in the middle of the sales floor. The pharmacist would still have to exit the pharmacy counter area entirely to use it.

If Target can give out register numbers to each visiting employee then they can give the break room code too. If it's a visiting employee I can see it stopping there, but if it's the pharmacist or a permanent assigned employee I still think they should get a discount card. They frequently get asked questions about location of merchandise storewide.

They may not give a register login to the visiting employees. They may operate with a "floater" login or similar. I think CVS still does that where there is a known register login that floating employees use that can work in every store (let's say it is operator 111 with password 111). Various pharmacy chains used to have this; Walgreens, Longs, etc.

One other thing CVS likes to do with the Target pharmacies is use pharmacy students for labor. If you're anywhere near a University with a big pharmacy school, like UC San Diego, you'll usually see a pharmacy student or two dressed in their schools lab coat with a CVS sticker applied. They do get paid for their work but I am sure it isn't the full amount even though they're basically getting an extra pharmacist or two from the school. CVS effectively uses them as a cashier or tech in these stores. For the CVS system they have a dated barcode sticker they scan for their username and password and it says right on it when it expires date and time. Target system is pretty complicated and they probably are giving them a unique identifier because of the way their system works.

[BillyGr]

I did notice that one SuperTarget location near me has a single customer restroom right next to the pharmacy, which in that format is a freestanding structure in the middle of the sales floor. The pharmacist would still have to exit the pharmacy counter area entirely to use it.

Sounds similar to many of the Walmart setups in stores where everything "consumable" (food, cleaning, HABA, pets) are on one side - those generally have a pharmacy in a "box" rather than on an exterior wall.

Not sure they have restrooms or not with those (could be concealed in the pharmacy just for employees), but that may depend on the store and area.