Target Rolls 10 item "Express Self Checkout" Nationwide

[ClownLoach]

https://corporate.target.com/press/fact ... provements

Self checkout will be limited to ten items nationwide and become the defacto express lane, and regular checkout staffing will be increased (as discussed by not allowing the manager to pull cashiers off to the floor anymore). Cashiers will also receive "additional training" which should translate to being held accountable for good service again. Managers can adjust hours of express self checkout to their needs. I assume this means that if they decide to pull staffing off the register they have to close self checkout instead of staffed lanes now.

About everything that we heard was coming made official.

[storewanderer]

Funny. Was in Reno Target tonight and all they had open was self checkout.

No signs about 10 items or less.

[ClownLoach]

Funny. Was in Reno Target tonight and all they had open was self checkout.

No signs about 10 items or less.

Says it begins March 17.

This makes sense as I was in a Target last month that had all new signage I hadn't seen before that said "Express Self Checkout" which they probably put up early in error.

As I've said before, I am convinced that this is an exercise to fire incompetent managers which Target seems to have an excess of. Too many high paid Store Managers with an MBA who sit in the office all day and have no clue what the customers are experiencing. Unfortunately this is a symptom of the disease, which is poor executive leadership that erased the culture of excellence that Target demanded before CEO Cornell and his C-Suite were installed. They have done many good things for the company that have grown sales substantially, but the lack of discipline has eroded the customer experience and it is my understanding that the gaps between "best and worst" results are massive. I think there are managers who are betting that there won't be any consequences to ignoring these new programs because of the lack of discipline/policy workaround culture that has developed, and it will be interesting to see how that works out for them. I've heard there is a secret shopper service that has been hired to inspect the execution of new programs going forward.

Every time I've become the new Manager of a store that has decent operations (not broken), I have focused on fixing the checkout lanes first. Every time I got a large comp increase from the relatively easy work of training the cashiers to be fast, efficient and friendly while forcing the leads and managers to ensure that the lines are under control at all times. Get people in and out of the store quickly and they will come back more often and make larger purchases. It is not rocket science.

[veteran+]

https://corporate.target.com/press/fact ... provements

Self checkout will be limited to ten items nationwide and become the defacto express lane, and regular checkout staffing will be increased (as discussed by not allowing the manager to pull cashiers off to the floor anymore). Cashiers will also receive "additional training" which should translate to being held accountable for good service again. Managers can adjust hours of express self checkout to their needs. I assume this means that if they decide to pull staffing off the register they have to close self checkout instead of staffed lanes now.

About everything that we heard was coming made official.

Fantastic news and I hope they follow through as an example for the industry to follow.

[veteran+]

"Every time I've become the new Manager of a store that has decent operations (not broken), I have focused on fixing the checkout lanes first. Every time I got a large comp increase from the relatively easy work of training the cashiers to be fast, efficient and friendly while forcing the leads and managers to ensure that the lines are under control at all times. Get people in and out of the store quickly and they will come back more often and make larger purchases. It is not rocket science."

BRILLIANT!!!!

It really is that simple and the fruition of that initiative usually comes quicker than most would expect!

[ClownLoach]

https://corporate.target.com/press/fact ... provements

Self checkout will be limited to ten items nationwide and become the defacto express lane, and regular checkout staffing will be increased (as discussed by not allowing the manager to pull cashiers off to the floor anymore). Cashiers will also receive "additional training" which should translate to being held accountable for good service again. Managers can adjust hours of express self checkout to their needs. I assume this means that if they decide to pull staffing off the register they have to close self checkout instead of staffed lanes now.

About everything that we heard was coming made official.

Fantastic news and I hope they follow through as an example for the industry to follow.

I think it's going to be a struggle which ultimately leads to turmoil in the short term. I think there are a lot of bad managers at Target who have only been able to hold their store together by robbing the full service checklanes of staff and reassigning those people/payroll hours to truck stocking, cleaning, recovery and of course online order pulling. So if say these floor tasks were budgeted for 6 people a day but the Manager was giving them 12 because they moved the cashiers, it is going to be a very ugly situation fast as the team that has never met its productivity goals will suddenly be cut down to the correct size. There will be some very messy stores, some bad in stocks, late online orders and so on.

[ClownLoach]

"Every time I've become the new Manager of a store that has decent operations (not broken), I have focused on fixing the checkout lanes first. Every time I got a large comp increase from the relatively easy work of training the cashiers to be fast, efficient and friendly while forcing the leads and managers to ensure that the lines are under control at all times. Get people in and out of the store quickly and they will come back more often and make larger purchases. It is not rocket science."

BRILLIANT!!!!

It really is that simple and the fruition of that initiative usually comes quicker than most would expect!

Unfortunately many retailers make this impossible. They are cutting so much from the labor budget and reducing Manager, Lead or Supervisor positions that they force the Store Managers to come in early mornings to make sure that all the big jobs get done like freight, merchandising, eCommerce orders. I know way too many Store Managers these days at too many companies who are there before 5am and they are out the door after lunchtime/off on weekends so they never see the prime time Business and have no idea what their customers experience. Sometimes they're coming in at midnight, which I personally think should be a rare occurrence. I am sure this problem is rampant at Target right now.

[storewanderer]

"Every time I've become the new Manager of a store that has decent operations (not broken), I have focused on fixing the checkout lanes first. Every time I got a large comp increase from the relatively easy work of training the cashiers to be fast, efficient and friendly while forcing the leads and managers to ensure that the lines are under control at all times. Get people in and out of the store quickly and they will come back more often and make larger purchases. It is not rocket science."

BRILLIANT!!!!

It really is that simple and the fruition of that initiative usually comes quicker than most would expect!

Unfortunately many retailers make this impossible. They are cutting so much from the labor budget and reducing Manager, Lead or Supervisor positions that they force the Store Managers to come in early mornings to make sure that all the big jobs get done like freight, merchandising, eCommerce orders. I know way too many Store Managers these days at too many companies who are there before 5am and they are out the door after lunchtime/off on weekends so they never see the prime time Business and have no idea what their customers experience. Sometimes they're coming in at midnight, which I personally think should be a rare occurrence. I am sure this problem is rampant at Target right now.

I have seen the store director in the Reno Target later in the evening a few times lately.

[ClownLoach]

"Every time I've become the new Manager of a store that has decent operations (not broken), I have focused on fixing the checkout lanes first. Every time I got a large comp increase from the relatively easy work of training the cashiers to be fast, efficient and friendly while forcing the leads and managers to ensure that the lines are under control at all times. Get people in and out of the store quickly and they will come back more often and make larger purchases. It is not rocket science."

BRILLIANT!!!!

It really is that simple and the fruition of that initiative usually comes quicker than most would expect!

Unfortunately many retailers make this impossible. They are cutting so much from the labor budget and reducing Manager, Lead or Supervisor positions that they force the Store Managers to come in early mornings to make sure that all the big jobs get done like freight, merchandising, eCommerce orders. I know way too many Store Managers these days at too many companies who are there before 5am and they are out the door after lunchtime/off on weekends so they never see the prime time Business and have no idea what their customers experience. Sometimes they're coming in at midnight, which I personally think should be a rare occurrence. I am sure this problem is rampant at Target right now.

I have seen the store director in the Reno Target later in the evening a few times lately.

New COO probably has assigned Human Resources to review schedule compliance and enforce the policies. Their system is capable of generating an automated report for the District Manager to see where managers are not working as expected. I'm sure the reports had been so out of control that nobody was following up anymore. Plus Target used to have a HR Manager in every store (typically with a HR degree) but cut back several years ago to one higher level HR per district (basically one got promoted and all others got demoted). Makes it easy for compliance on basics like that to break.

Their stores had become ghost towns at night when it comes to leadership and I'm sure that's when most of the theft is happening including internal theft. They can no longer allow one manager on duty sitting in the office just talking on the radio to employees wandering aimlessly and finding excuses for them to leave the front end to goof off on the sales floor. That is how way too many Target stores have been operating.

[BatteryMill]

Worth noting that express checkout was the norm at Target prior to the rollout of self-checkout in 2015.