Target online sales drop

[storewanderer]

The operations I observe align with this. Walmart gives too much leeway to their Store Managers and local LP officials but doesn't supervise them well. They have a very strange model as previously discussed of a minimal District Manager team where a district can be 60-70 stores or more, so there is little consistency of direction given. A regional Manager could have a few dozen districts. Most stores get one formal District Manager visit a year and it's on a calendar months in advance; the Regional Managers have this calendar and show up to these announced visits "unannounced". Thus every visit is a dog and pony show where the whole district goes around and fixes stores so the DM never sees reality due to the risk that their boss could show up to the visit. Supposedly this model works well for Walmart because it forces them to at least get the stores cleaned up once or twice a YEAR as the visit is expected to be perfect. These DM and above visitors are as disconnected as possible - they're not even allowed to visit stores in "dangerous" areas like LA without the presence of security personnel and they're driven by a private car service. Says a lot about how much they care - the store isn't safe enough for the DM to shop in let alone a VP - but it's perfectly fine for the minimum wage employees.

The Store Managers are given authority to order for endcaps and pallet stack displays with very few corporate directed sets aside from the Prefilled endcap trays or pallet shippers. Basically they have a special system in which they place their orders and sales/margin/sales per Sq ft are measured and Walmart considers your ability to maximize this space as your ability to manage a store period. You can see how this can go very wrong with a Manager who doesn't understand their area. Obviously there is a high level of desirability for Managers from tough urban stores to apply for openings at suburban or rural stores that will not have situations like the daily restroom overdoses, full basket run outs, rampant return fraud, lockup in every aisle, and of course violence and anger everywhere. But before you know it they see a problem in their pretty little store in the country and they "know how to solve it" because they're like a hammer and every problem they see looks like a nail to them.

My personal favorite Walmart Manager autonomy example of all time was in the now closed Irvine, CA store where a Store Manager was transferred direct from Arkansas to oversee the location while their manager was covering somewhere else. They ordered pallet stacks of Velveeta Cheese and placed them at the front door along with turkey fryers, electric smokers and such. In spring in a renter majority city. Seriously there were endcaps of canned okra and black eyed peas. Chicken coop kits. This in a one of the most health oriented, plus most diverse and well integrated cities in America. It was the most stereotypical Southern US selection I've ever seen, almost like they were thumbing their nose at local culture and ignoring the new Whole Foods around the corner. Customers were absolutely baffled by what they were seeing and certainly weren't buying any of it. Obviously to the Arkansas Manager this was the perfect assortment for this store because it's all they knew... The regular Manager returned a few months later from his special assignment and I can only imagine what they decided to do with all this junk. Probably had to donate all of it.

I'm certain that on the West Coast Walmart LP has a "straight to lockup" program because of their intensive focus on shrink dollars first. So the LP department is incentivized to put the entire store behind glass doors. Maybe this is the way it needs to be due to the high volume of their stores? But I doubt there is ever any discussion at all of staffing to support the lock down measures, and the Walmart comical lack of employee trust means nobody can carry the keys. They assume every employee is probably a thief which leads to purchasing decisions like the aprons they bought a few years ago without any pockets. But as a customer it is nearly impossible now to go into Walmart with a typical grocery list and not find that at least two items are locked down, with no "call buttons" and no personnel who can help other than getting on the overhead PA. Another favorite observation is the moving of locked up categories to the makeshift cosmetics corrals but they don't give keys to the cashier there because then they would have to leave their station! So they stand there uselessly paging overhead with hilarious results... "Available Walmart Associate with keys to the Condom case. Available Walmart Associate with keys...." seriously I heard that overhead on the PA system. That's a customer who's never going to think of buying family planning products at Walmart. I can only imagine what else they'll lock up if they haven't already then page overhead every time a customer needs assistance. Laxatives? Hemorrhoid cream? Obviously if you need anything moderately embarrassing or even minimally expensive at Walmart you're probably better off buying online. Couple that with supposed Manager scorecards that rank shrink and online sales percentage and you've got a double incentive for the store to keep locking everything up. Cut shrink and increase online sales percentage. But how many people like the guy who was put on a pedestal at the corral for "keys to the condom case" are going to choose Walmart for that online order when they could go to Amazon who didn't publicly announce what they're buying in front of a couple thousand other shoppers?

There seems to be a lot less lock-up at the Wal Mart units I have gone to in OR/WA, than there is in the units I have gone to in CA, NV, and NM. As noted above AZ also doesn't lock much up. Lock up is actually somewhat minimal around Sacramento (still too much locked up in outer suburbs) and Reno (same "district") but the bay area is horrific and so is SoCal. There is more locked up in Reno/Sacramento than I saw around metro Portland, though I did not go to any closing stores, so maybe those were worse. Las Vegas is also horrific with the amount of locked up product. Albuquerque is similar to Las Vegas. Go to Denver or Salt Lake City and there isn't much locked up at all (again similar to OR/WA).

Your grocery list example and encountering lock up would not happen around Reno/Sacramento, but I have been to stores deeper into the bay area where that would absolutely happen.

The lock up cases in Reno often have 50%+ of merchandise out of stock. Also often times they have overstock (boxes of overstock) of the lock up items right on the top shelves... it is absolutely stupid what they are doing. In Reno a few months ago they started to have every Reno store (only the stores physically in Reno- not even Sparks) lock up all men's undergarments and all Lego toys. Every store got these cases. While this has definitely cut down on the number of open packages of men's undergarments, there still seem to be quite a few out of stocks. Maybe nobody has the keys to open the cases to restock? And the Lego aisle- that is less than 50% in stock at every single store. No clue what is going on. If they are going to have these locked cases I expect 100% in stock and that is not happening.

I am suspicious their Lego issue (and probably a lot of other categories) is people not scanning the boxes correctly at self checkout. In this case the locked cases do not do a thing because when they eventually open the case they just give you the item to whatever, stick in a reusable bag and shoplift, put in the cart and pretend to pay for at self checkout, etc.

The cosmetics areas with the registers in Reno are not staffed and most of them don't even have working registers (they'll be missing a pinpad, or a note on the screen saying it is broken, scanner broken, etc.). They have plastic blockers on almost every cosmetics peg but since many packages are paper, people just rip them right off the peg, no need to get anyone to unlock the pegs. So they may as well not even have those locking peg blockers. However Wal Mart's cosmetics areas have a better in-stock percentage (even if it is below 50%) than the Reno Target fiasco.

[ClownLoach]

The operations I observe align with this. Walmart gives too much leeway to their Store Managers and local LP officials but doesn't supervise them well. They have a very strange model as previously discussed of a minimal District Manager team where a district can be 60-70 stores or more, so there is little consistency of direction given. A regional Manager could have a few dozen districts. Most stores get one formal District Manager visit a year and it's on a calendar months in advance; the Regional Managers have this calendar and show up to these announced visits "unannounced". Thus every visit is a dog and pony show where the whole district goes around and fixes stores so the DM never sees reality due to the risk that their boss could show up to the visit. Supposedly this model works well for Walmart because it forces them to at least get the stores cleaned up once or twice a YEAR as the visit is expected to be perfect. These DM and above visitors are as disconnected as possible - they're not even allowed to visit stores in "dangerous" areas like LA without the presence of security personnel and they're driven by a private car service. Says a lot about how much they care - the store isn't safe enough for the DM to shop in let alone a VP - but it's perfectly fine for the minimum wage employees.

The Store Managers are given authority to order for endcaps and pallet stack displays with very few corporate directed sets aside from the Prefilled endcap trays or pallet shippers. Basically they have a special system in which they place their orders and sales/margin/sales per Sq ft are measured and Walmart considers your ability to maximize this space as your ability to manage a store period. You can see how this can go very wrong with a Manager who doesn't understand their area. Obviously there is a high level of desirability for Managers from tough urban stores to apply for openings at suburban or rural stores that will not have situations like the daily restroom overdoses, full basket run outs, rampant return fraud, lockup in every aisle, and of course violence and anger everywhere. But before you know it they see a problem in their pretty little store in the country and they "know how to solve it" because they're like a hammer and every problem they see looks like a nail to them.

My personal favorite Walmart Manager autonomy example of all time was in the now closed Irvine, CA store where a Store Manager was transferred direct from Arkansas to oversee the location while their manager was covering somewhere else. They ordered pallet stacks of Velveeta Cheese and placed them at the front door along with turkey fryers, electric smokers and such. In spring in a renter majority city. Seriously there were endcaps of canned okra and black eyed peas. Chicken coop kits. This in a one of the most health oriented, plus most diverse and well integrated cities in America. It was the most stereotypical Southern US selection I've ever seen, almost like they were thumbing their nose at local culture and ignoring the new Whole Foods around the corner. Customers were absolutely baffled by what they were seeing and certainly weren't buying any of it. Obviously to the Arkansas Manager this was the perfect assortment for this store because it's all they knew... The regular Manager returned a few months later from his special assignment and I can only imagine what they decided to do with all this junk. Probably had to donate all of it.

I'm certain that on the West Coast Walmart LP has a "straight to lockup" program because of their intensive focus on shrink dollars first. So the LP department is incentivized to put the entire store behind glass doors. Maybe this is the way it needs to be due to the high volume of their stores? But I doubt there is ever any discussion at all of staffing to support the lock down measures, and the Walmart comical lack of employee trust means nobody can carry the keys. They assume every employee is probably a thief which leads to purchasing decisions like the aprons they bought a few years ago without any pockets. But as a customer it is nearly impossible now to go into Walmart with a typical grocery list and not find that at least two items are locked down, with no "call buttons" and no personnel who can help other than getting on the overhead PA. Another favorite observation is the moving of locked up categories to the makeshift cosmetics corrals but they don't give keys to the cashier there because then they would have to leave their station! So they stand there uselessly paging overhead with hilarious results... "Available Walmart Associate with keys to the Condom case. Available Walmart Associate with keys...." seriously I heard that overhead on the PA system. That's a customer who's never going to think of buying family planning products at Walmart. I can only imagine what else they'll lock up if they haven't already then page overhead every time a customer needs assistance. Laxatives? Hemorrhoid cream? Obviously if you need anything moderately embarrassing or even minimally expensive at Walmart you're probably better off buying online. Couple that with supposed Manager scorecards that rank shrink and online sales percentage and you've got a double incentive for the store to keep locking everything up. Cut shrink and increase online sales percentage. But how many people like the guy who was put on a pedestal at the corral for "keys to the condom case" are going to choose Walmart for that online order when they could go to Amazon who didn't publicly announce what they're buying in front of a couple thousand other shoppers?

There seems to be a lot less lock-up at the Wal Mart units I have gone to in OR/WA, than there is in the units I have gone to in CA, NV, and NM. As noted above AZ also doesn't lock much up. Lock up is actually somewhat minimal around Sacramento (still too much locked up in outer suburbs) and Reno (same "district") but the bay area is horrific and so is SoCal. There is more locked up in Reno/Sacramento than I saw around metro Portland, though I did not go to any closing stores, so maybe those were worse. Las Vegas is also horrific with the amount of locked up product. Albuquerque is similar to Las Vegas. Go to Denver or Salt Lake City and there isn't much locked up at all (again similar to OR/WA).

Your grocery list example and encountering lock up would not happen around Reno/Sacramento, but I have been to stores deeper into the bay area where that would absolutely happen.

The lock up cases in Reno often have 50%+ of merchandise out of stock. Also often times they have overstock (boxes of overstock) of the lock up items right on the top shelves... it is absolutely stupid what they are doing. In Reno a few months ago they started to have every Reno store (only the stores physically in Reno- not even Sparks) lock up all men's undergarments and all Lego toys. Every store got these cases. While this has definitely cut down on the number of open packages of men's undergarments, there still seem to be quite a few out of stocks. Maybe nobody has the keys to open the cases to restock? And the Lego aisle- that is less than 50% in stock at every single store. No clue what is going on. If they are going to have these locked cases I expect 100% in stock and that is not happening.

I am suspicious their Lego issue (and probably a lot of other categories) is people not scanning the boxes correctly at self checkout. In this case the locked cases do not do a thing because when they eventually open the case they just give you the item to whatever, stick in a reusable bag and shoplift, put in the cart and pretend to pay for at self checkout, etc.

The cosmetics areas with the registers in Reno are not staffed and most of them don't even have working registers (they'll be missing a pinpad, or a note on the screen saying it is broken, scanner broken, etc.). They have plastic blockers on almost every cosmetics peg but since many packages are paper, people just rip them right off the peg, no need to get anyone to unlock the pegs. So they may as well not even have those locking peg blockers. However Wal Mart's cosmetics areas have a better in-stock percentage (even if it is below 50%) than the Reno Target fiasco.

I saw little lockup at the "nicer area" Vancouver WA store closer to Washougal. The Portland location I went to (now closed) could be renamed Case Mart. And the Seattle suburbs I visited last couple of years were also locked up prisons. Federal Way felt like something you'd expect in the worst of LA or the Bay, same thing with all underwear and socks locked up and aisle after aisle of glass cases. I actually felt unsafe in the store - some really rough and tumble clientèle there and the light rail is being extended practically to the parking lot soon meaning now they'll get the homeless shoplifters direct from downtown Seattle.

What irks me is when I see trashed merchandising, no recovery etc. Inside locked glass cases at Walmart. Shows how little pride their store team takes. If it's a pigsty in the cases it's the employees not the customers.

[storewanderer]

I saw little lockup at the "nicer area" Vancouver WA store closer to Washougal. The Portland location I went to (now closed) could be renamed Case Mart. And the Seattle suburbs I visited last couple of years were also locked up prisons. Federal Way felt like something you'd expect in the worst of LA or the Bay, same thing with all underwear and socks locked up and aisle after aisle of glass cases. I actually felt unsafe in the store - some really rough and tumble clientèle there and the light rail is being extended practically to the parking lot soon meaning now they'll get the homeless shoplifters direct from downtown Seattle.

What irks me is when I see trashed merchandising, no recovery etc. Inside locked glass cases at Walmart. Shows how little pride their store team takes. If it's a pigsty in the cases it's the employees not the customers.

The cases are pretty neatly arranged here, just not stocked well in too many cases.

So maybe in some regions they target certain stores for heavy locked cases but this CA-based management (the Reno Stores are under CA management) has some sort of a program where all of the stores in a given area get the same treatment. I can see a loss prevention argument for this- we turn store in Federal Way into Case Mart but leave the next closest 3 stores alone and now those 3 stores will turn into shoplifter's paradise and we don't solve the problem. So we need to lock these items up in every store in a 20 mile radius. Operations is either too busy or has too much turnover to come in and stop this sales killing idea from happening in more locations than it needs to, the lower employees obviously can't say a word, so this is what happens.

I think at this point the locked cases are just there for online order fulfillment. Locked case basically means this isn't here for the in person customer standing on the sales floor to buy because we have no labor to actually unlock the case. Tough luck. The online order pickers seem to have keys around here. Getting one of these cases unlocked it one of the biggest hassles I've ever experienced in a retail store. Then the other option is to go to Target where nothing is locked but a ton of SKUs in those categories Wal Mart locks up are out of stock and never being replenished. And in my case in Reno, the Target looks far worse and is far messier and with more out of stocks all over the store than any Wal Mart. I am impressed though various areas of the Reno Target that for months were like 20% in stock (like dog toys and various hardlines areas) are now close to 70% in stock, so I guess you could say they are getting better. I often wonder if these chains are pushing themselves to being irrelevant.

I've seen some stores with those messy locked cases out of town and I think it is pretty pathetic that nobody involved in the operation thinks those need to be straightened out.

[Romr123]

I saw little lockup at the "nicer area" Vancouver WA store closer to Washougal. The Portland location I went to (now closed) could be renamed Case Mart. And the Seattle suburbs I visited last couple of years were also locked up prisons. Federal Way felt like something you'd expect in the worst of LA or the Bay, same thing with all underwear and socks locked up and aisle after aisle of glass cases. I actually felt unsafe in the store - some really rough and tumble clientèle there and the light rail is being extended practically to the parking lot soon meaning now they'll get the homeless shoplifters direct from downtown Seattle.

What irks me is when I see trashed merchandising, no recovery etc. Inside locked glass cases at Walmart. Shows how little pride their store team takes. If it's a pigsty in the cases it's the employees not the customers.

The cases are pretty neatly arranged here, just not stocked well in too many cases.

So maybe in some regions they target certain stores for heavy locked cases but this CA-based management (the Reno Stores are under CA management) has some sort of a program where all of the stores in a given area get the same treatment. I can see a loss prevention argument for this- we turn store in Federal Way into Case Mart but leave the next closest 3 stores alone and now those 3 stores will turn into shoplifter's paradise and we don't solve the problem. So we need to lock these items up in every store in a 20 mile radius. Operations is either too busy or has too much turnover to come in and stop this sales killing idea from happening in more locations than it needs to, the lower employees obviously can't say a word, so this is what happens.

I think at this point the locked cases are just there for online order fulfillment. Locked case basically means this isn't here for the in person customer standing on the sales floor to buy because we have no labor to actually unlock the case. Tough luck. The online order pickers seem to have keys around here. Getting one of these cases unlocked it one of the biggest hassles I've ever experienced in a retail store. Then the other option is to go to Target where nothing is locked but a ton of SKUs in those categories Wal Mart locks up are out of stock and never being replenished. And in my case in Reno, the Target looks far worse and is far messier and with more out of stocks all over the store than any Wal Mart. I am impressed though various areas of the Reno Target that for months were like 20% in stock (like dog toys and various hardlines areas) are now close to 70% in stock, so I guess you could say they are getting better. I often wonder if these chains are pushing themselves to being irrelevant.

I've seen some stores with those messy locked cases out of town and I think it is pretty pathetic that nobody involved in the operation thinks those need to be straightened out.

the "all stores locked down" also insulates WM from accusations of "redlining" or differential enforcement...

[veteran+]

I'm not seeing Case Mart situations in any of the closest Targets to me.

Also, all the Targets near me seem to be well manicured.

[Brian Lutz]

I've only been into a couple of stores, but it seems that in the Walmart stores here most items are not locked up in cases. Generally only the high value items (such as shavers, electric hair care products and electric toothbrushes) are locked up, with most items kept out on the shelves. I have also observed that some stores will keep the "family planning" section in a locked case as well. It seems that many people who would be purchasing such items would want to be as discreet about it as possible and preferably not involve a random stranger in the process, but I can also see why such items would be frequently stolen. Target seems to keep this section out in the open in their stores though.

[ClownLoach]

I had never seen the Target "case mart" setup until last Fall, and now it seems to be exploding everywhere. They lock up all the laundry detergent. Almost every health item. All the toothpaste. Socks and underwear. Basically the same items Walmart locks down. Just saw a Las Vegas Target that got the lockup treatment last week. The only difference is that generally Target has working call boxes on all of them and they respond quickly. Target has timed team member response times to call buttons for well over a decade and you apparently don't want to be on the report for long average wait times; they can only be cleared on location by the team member in the aisle. It appears that the Asset Protection employees respond to the glass cases, but they're still giving items to customers directly. I did purchase an electronics item from a case and was told I needed to pay at the counter there. I think any lockup of merchandise should be handled by LP employees to reduce the burden on the rest of the store. That way if they lock down something stupid like Band Aids priced at 99¢ they have to deal with the blowback.

[storewanderer]

I think having LP respond to the lock ups and being in possession of the keys is a great idea. The only problem is LP is supposed to technically be plainclothes/not visible to the customer so this could potentially blow their cover. Granted I can usually spot LP in these stores, especially Wal Marts, they make themselves so obvious when they are following people.

Target gives pretty generous budgets to Asset Protection. I have heard rumblings of cuts in some stores recently but I think it is more of a shift of resources to the problem stores vs. putting excessive Asset Protection dollars into low risk stores as they may have done in the past.

Haven't seen working call boxes in the Reno Target in a long time; finding a working price scanner is also a problem. Even after the remodel and replacement multiple of the big new scanners are busted/cracked and nobody cares.

The only Targets I've seen with so much stuff locked down are in San Francisco.

[Alpha8472]

Walmart in the San Francisco Bay Area does the locked cases, but has teams of employees with keys constantly walking around at all times. Every item is placed in a locked plastic box to be taken to the checkout or the employee brings the item to the front registers.

The online fulfillment employees do not open cases for customers but claim they will call employees to unlock the cases.

These totally locked up stores have the key opening system totally down. It might be overwhelming at busy times, but the key holder employees move fast. They have a well oiled system with employees with keys at all times.

[storewanderer]

Walmart in the San Francisco Bay Area does the locked cases, but has teams of employees with keys constantly walking around at all times. Every item is placed in a locked plastic box to be taken to the checkout or the employee brings the item to the front registers.

The online fulfillment employees do not open cases for customers but claim they will call employees to unlock the cases.

These totally locked up stores have the key opening system totally down. It might be overwhelming at busy times, but the key holder employees move fast. They have a well oiled system with employees with keys at all times.

I have only seen the system you describe in action in a store in Las Vegas. They need to actually give the budget for all stores with locked cases to do that during all hours they are open

In other locations with random lock-ups here and there, finding someone to unlock these things is nearly impossible. I used to assume it was because I was shopping in the evening. Then in Reno I tried to get a few items in the daytime at two different locations and had a similar terrible experience. For instance the auto center employees did not have a key to unlock the case with headlight bulbs in it (yet at another store I had bought a headlight bulb at a few months prior, the auto center employees were the ONLY employees with a key to that case, it was kept inside their register, and if you wanted something from it when they were closed, sorry).

They don't want the online fulfillment employees to open cases because they are graded on pick rates and doing that slows down their picks. The customer who wants merchandise doesn't really care what the internal pick rate is, they just want the merchandise now. This is a tough situation for those employees. In many cases it would take them less time to get the customer the item than page someone else over and/or argue with the customer.