Target is testing a new self-checkout policy as retailers find cashier-less technology Clients can be put off.
In a few stores, Target has restricted self-checkout for customers who purchase 10 or fewer items. Customers purchasing more than that are asked to use the full service lanes with cashiers.
A Target spokesman said the test was designed to shorten wait times and “better understand” shoppers’ preferences.
“Our guests tell us they enjoy interacting with our team,” John Mulligan, Target’s chief operating officer, said on a call with analysts Tuesday about the changes. The company “refocused” its checkout areas and has since seen a 6% increase in the number of customers using its full-service cashier lanes across its stores.
Target and other retailers have expanded self-checkout machines in recent years. Self-checkout is designed to help businesses save labor costs and speed up the checkout process for shoppers.
But the promise of self-exit was not always fulfilled.
Self-checkout machines sometimes malfunction. Customers often encounter errors and glitches in scanning items, requiring staff to come and assist them. This erases potential labor savings and makes the self-checkout process slower, in some cases, than the full-service checkout process — the problem it was supposed to solve.
“Our customers have told us this over time – that the self-scanning machines we have in our stores… can be slow, they can be unreliable [and] “They are clearly impersonal,” an executive at the boutique chain Booths told The New York Times. BBC. Kiosks recently removed the self-checkout feature from all but two of its 28 stores. Walmart, Costco, Shoprite and other chains have also reviewed their self-checkout strategies.
It’s worth noting that retailers lose more potential sales through self-checkouts than full-service cashiers, whether due to intentional shoplifting or honest mistakes by customers. One study of retailers in the United States, Britain, and other European countries It found that companies with self-checkout lanes and apps had a loss rate of about 4%, more than double the industry average.
Target said merchandise losses, known as shrinkage, were not a factor in testing new self-checkout policies.
The target indicated theft Both small shoplifting and organized groups Criminals steal goods and resell them online, as they are responsible for increasing losses. (More than 60% of shrinkage includes employee theft, damaged products, management errors, vendor fraud and other factors.)
“The downturn continues to represent a significant financial headwind,” Target Chief Financial Officer Michael Fedelke said Tuesday.
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