Target leaves customers frustrated with its latest change in its stores
The retailer is reportedly pulling back on a convenient privilege customers love.
Target appears to be piloting a major change to its stores. The retail giant is reportedly scaling back on self-check hours, and it's having unintended consequences. Customers at Target stores have recently been flagging long cashier checkout lines on social media, which appears to be the result of understaffing and closed self-checkout lanes.
In a new Reddit post, a Target employee claimed that the store they work at has cut its self-checkout (SCO) hours by half.
Related: Target CEO has surprising words on retail theft
“We’re open 8-10 normally but I just got told that our SCO will now only be operating 10-6:30,” wrote the Reddit user.
Another user replying to the post claims that in the Target store they work at, not only have self-checkout hours shrunk, but so have the number of cashiers.
“Ours are open 11-7 now. We're supposed to have two cashiers until 11. We have one,” wrote the user.
Another Target employee in the thread claims that they were told that the reduced checkout hours was due to the company attempting to prevent retail theft.
“Was told, it’s every store and it’s to prevent people/ employees from stealing and if we were to use them then we can get fired if we used them after 8pm est,” wrote the user.
A spokesperson for Target did not confirm or deny that the company was permanently reducing self-checkout hours at its stores, but clarified to TheStreet in an emailed statement that “select stores” are undergoing “a number of tests.”
“In select stores we are piloting a number of tests to determine their impact on the overall guest experience,” wrote the spokesperson. “These tests vary by location.”
The news of Target's reduced self-checkout hours comes at a time when the company is being blasted online by customers for having long cashier checkout lines. In a viral tweet that was posted on social media platform X on Feb. 13, which gained over 26.9 million views, a user shared a photo of a long line stretched across a local Target store in Virginia revealing that only one cashier was working at the time.
I don’t even know what to say about this. ONE cashier?! pic.twitter.com/hfaHYghERi— Cancer in the water (@CarrdiganButton) February 13, 2024
Some users in the comments of the tweet also revealed that they too have spotted long lines at their local Target stores, and cited closed self-checkout lanes as one of the culprits.
The target by me closed all self checkout and let one person check ppl out. After the line got massive they realized it was dumb and let ppl use self checkout.— Lily Doxy
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