Signs of trouble at Target?

[storewanderer]

I was in the City Target in Westwood and noticed it had decor like a typical Target Store and no music was playing inside. This is quite different from the City Target in San Francisco which had music playing and had a different decor than the typical Target. I seem to recall the City Target in Chicago also had the different decor but might be wrong.

I cannot understand a Target Food Avenue department being closed on a Sunday afternoon unless either they had no staffing or there was equipment not working. Again, more signs of operational problems at Target. These are always run by Target, not independent franchises.

[Alpha8472]

The Starbucks inside of Target stores are run by Target. Target employees are trained to follow Starbucks standards, but they are Target employees and are paid Target wages. Target pays a percentage of the sales from Starbucks drinks, food, and merchandise to Starbucks. This is different than McDonald's restaurants inside of Walmart stores. Those McDonald's stores are not run by Walmart and it is McDonald's that leases space inside of Walmart stores.

Target tried to enter Canada and thought that they would make tons of money. Canadians for years have crossed the border to buy cheap products at US Target stores. However, Target was wrong about entering Canada. They thought that Canadians would welcome Target with open arms and wallets. Target was wrong. Canada has a higher minimum wage and very expensive regulations. This has caused prices at Canadian Target stores to be much higher than at Target stores in the US. Canadians find it cheaper to drive across the border and buy from Target stores in the US. Also, the selection of products at Canadian Target stores is much more limited as fewer products are able to be brought into the country and sold. It is very expensive to import items across the border due to regulations. The Canadian Target stores are losing money and Canadian customers are complaining about the high prices and limited selections of products.

Walmart has been in Canada for years and is much more experienced in dealing with Canada, but even they are having trouble making a profit in the country due to the high costs of doing business in Canada.

The stolen credit card scandal at Target has hurt its business tremendously. Customers have moved on to other chains such as Walmart. Target will probably not recover from this mess for years to come. I have personally heard stories from friends who have had their credit and debit card information stolen. They received huge bills of fraudulent charges. Target not only lost credit and debit card information, but also personal information such as email addresses, phone numbers, and home addresses when their computer systems were hacked. The worst thing is that Target was warned by an outside security company that their systems were being invaded, but Target ignored it and refused to make it public until it was too late.

[Super S]

I was in the City Target in Westwood and noticed it had decor like a typical Target Store and no music was playing inside. This is quite different from the City Target in San Francisco which had music playing and had a different decor than the typical Target. I seem to recall the City Target in Chicago also had the different decor but might be wrong.

I have yet to visit a City Target. However, Target has had a "no music" policy in place for many years. I have never been to a Target store that was playing music of any kind over the P.A. system. The only music you will typically hear in a Target store comes from the radios and televisions in the electronics department.

Target in fact discourages use of the P.A. system, and instead many employees use wireless walkie-talkie like devices and pagers. I briefly worked at Target during the early 90s, and at that time many employees had pagers. The problem was that the batteries would often be dead before the shift was over, or the pagers would get lost, or employees would forget to turn them on. The only areas of the store where one could make announcements were at the service desk or upstairs by the main phone. Otherwise you would have to call their extensions and ask them to make an overhead announcement when trying to reach somebody, and all they would do was call the persons dead/missing/powered off pager, which led to a LOT of service issues..

Back to the original topic: I was in the Kelso Target a few days ago, and noticed that they have reopened the service desk. However, customer count seemed lower than either of the Walmarts or Fred Meyer. There were only two cashiers open.

[arizonaguy]

There is a Target in Scottsdale, Arizona that has the Customer Service desk moved to the 1st check stand but the reason for its move had nothing to do with customer count. Rather, Target put a Starbucks where the customer service desk used to be.

[storewanderer]

The Carson City, NV Target reopened its customer service counter but has a service call box on it, it is not staffed. I can't tell where the employee comes from to staff it. The Reno, NV Target customer service is now unattended with a bell on the counter. I cannot imagine this is approved by corporate. The Sparks, NV Target customer service is typically attended when I go to the store, but it has a phone on the counter and a "lift for service" notice.

Target must be having a lower rate of returns to be able to write off customer service counters. Whenever I go into Kmart or Wal Mart, I always see customers at the customer service areas.

[wnetmacman]

Target must be having a lower rate of returns to be able to write off customer service counters. Whenever I go into Kmart or Wal Mart, I always see customers at the customer service areas.

I don't think it's quite that easy. Walmart's returns are far less intrusive than Target. When you return an item at Walmart, they just ask why. No restrictions, other than not being able to return without a receipt more than 3 times a year. At Target, returns are ALWAYS difficult. Did it work? Why not? Why are you returning a good item. No receipt? Then you only get credit in the specific area of that department. (i.e. a DVD player gets a credit in the DVD player section of electronics.) Most folks I know don't return things to Target because it's just plain hard to. So Target has lower returns, but not for the same reasons as Kmart or Walmart.

I once got clothes from Target for Christmas. They didn't fit, and I didn't want anything else from the clothing section. But because the giver didn't give a receipt, that was my choice.

[storewanderer]

You raise a very interesting point regarding the return policy at Target. Is this strict policy a liability for them?

Over time, I believe, customers become very upset when they have a problem returning something to a store. While having a tight return policy does eliminate some refund fraud, it also upsets some honest customers. Over time, as more and more honest customers lose a receipt or give someone a gift, then have a bad experience with the return or hear from who they gave the gift to that they had a bad experience, it may make these people think twice about shopping at Target as much as they would had they not heard any negative about the return policy.

Target's current strict return policy has been in place for a while now but I wonder if over time, the number of customers it has upset, is finally hindering Target. All of my returns to Target have been with a receipt and packages have been unopened and my experiences have been prompt and efficient, I don't recall more than one question about the reason for return .

I recently returned a couple of home department items to Wal Mart and did not have a receipt and was surprised to see they did not even take ID, they simply gave me a gift card for the value of the items and said you are all set.

I was not familiar of how restrictive Target is with no return receipts. I always assumed it was tracked by ID, and then if you tried more than 2 in a certain time period, or the value was over a certain amount such as $50, then you got a denial or a corporate issued refund rather than store issued. I did not know their credit was restricted to a specific department. I would not buy gifts at Target knowing this.

[Alpha8472]

Target seems to have expanded hours at most of their stores. In my area, many stores are now open 8 AM until Midnight except for Sundays when they close at 11 PM. Perhaps Target believes that opening later will bring in more sales. It is a trade off since one extra hour might cost more in employee payroll. However, many Target stores employ overnight crews anyway to restock the store. Having some of those employees staff registers will probably not be much of a problem.

Walmart traditionally has had many stores that opened until midnight and in many cases stores are open 6 Am to Midnight. Target stores usually open at 8 AM even if they are SuperTargets.

I still notice that Target stores don't seem to be as crowded as they used to be a couple of years ago. The credit card breach really has caused some customers to jump ship.

[Brian Lutz]

Around here, I believe that most of the Target stores are still open 8am-11pm, but hours seem to vary by store. Some stores stay open until Midnight, others only stay open until 10 (in fact, I think most of the Target stores here were only open until 10 daily until about 3 years ago when they started staying open until 11.) I don't see any that open before 8 here.

For comparison, most of the Walmarts here don't even bother posting hours on the door which I would assume to mean they're open 24 hours (edit: On looking on the website, most are open 6am-Midnight daily.) Fred Meyers are generally open 7 to 11 daily.

[Super S]

There is a Target in Scottsdale, Arizona that has the Customer Service desk moved to the 1st check stand but the reason for its move had nothing to do with customer count. Rather, Target put a Starbucks where the customer service desk used to be.

Interestingly enough, I visited the Target in Olympia a few days ago, and they are in the process of moving the service desk to the checkstand area to make way for a Starbucks. I have to wonder why they aren't taking over the existing restaurant space though. This store has the potential to become VERY cluttered when things are finished, as this is one of the only Target stores I have ever seen that also has self-checkouts. It looks like several regular checkstands have been removed. Then again, since Target can be almost as bad as Walmart in only having 1 or 2 registers open during busy periods, having fewer checkstands might create an illusion that the store is better staffed. But, if they decided to only have combination service desk/cashier checkouts, and only have those employees working at the front, things could back up quickly when dealing with an irate customer returning something. Having no regular cashiers and only staffing the service desk is something that occurs fairly regularly in Kmart stores.