Because I apparently fulfill every stereotype of my millennial generation, I’m a fan of Target. I’d rather go there than Wal-Mart. But recently, every time I go in there, only two cashiers are on duty and the lines are long. Sometimes I use self checkout if I’m in a hurry, though I don’t like to. Self checkouts, as you might imagine, make it easier for people to shoplift, both intentionally and on accident if they ring something in wrong or it doesn’t scan properly. I did that once with a bag of apples, and I had no idea it didn’t scan until I looked at my receipt later. I’m sure companies like Target and Kroeger thought self checkout would save them so much money because they could hire fewer cashiers. But they must be losing enough revenue through theft and error-prone shoppers like me, that they are having to make some changes to self-checkout. Target has started limiting self checkout to 10 items or less in Maine. People on social media are not happy. Target now has to have an employee stationed at the self checkout lane to check if people only have 10 items or less. So much for reducing labor costs, my corporate dudes.
Maine is the first place where this change has taken effect: As WCYY reported on Oct. 9, Target stores in Maine are now limiting the amount of items you can purchase in the self-checkout line. As the outlet reported, they now have signs that read: “Self-checkout is now 10 items or fewer.”
Allegedly it’s supposed to reduce wait times: Target did give an official reason, telling the outlet that this change is to reduce wait times for both the self-checkout and cashier lanes. The company also said that they’re just testing it out in select locations at the moment to also “better understand guest preferences.” And as The Daily Mail reported, there is no news from Target on whether this will be rolled out nationwide, and if so, when.
People on social media hate it: And even though long wait times have seemingly been a major complaint from Target customers online (allegedly leading to this shift), Target’s new self-checkout item limit policy has users on X (formerly Twitter) just as upset. On Oct. 24, X user @codyrodriguez wrote, “@AskTarget Disappointed with Target’s new self-checkout item limit. Only 1-2 regular registers open with long lines regularly. Why limit efficiency and convenience? Target, please prioritize customer experience. #ShoppingFrustration #CustomerExperience”
Truly what bothers me more than anything about Target self checkout is how heinous the security camera makfteches me look. I always look like a 14th century peasant who is not going to survive the winter. Please tell me I am not the only person who experiences this with the cameras. In all seriousness, I know that being a cashier at a grocery store or big box store like Target is probably a terrible job. But I don’t think self-checkout works well enough to be a good enough replacement for a real person. The machines are glitchy, and I don’t know what the code is for avocados if the sticker doesn’t scan. No matter where you put your stuff, the machine always yells at you about an “unidentified item in bagging area!” Even if there is no item in the bagging area. It is not a pleasant experience. And yeah, it makes shoplifting easy. People do it all the time. People have always shoplifted and they’re always going to, sometimes out of necessity, sometimes not. Self checkout just made it more seamless for them. The most unreasonable thing about the 10 item limit is this: it is physically impossible for millennial women to exit a Target with fewer than 23 things, and everyone knows it.
Target and this 10 items or less at self checkout is GARBAGE!!!
Open more lanes then!! Me and my 20 items in self checkout right now!!
— From Oakland With ❤️ (@Monique510) October 29, 2023
Target self-checkout (at least at the Saint Paul Midway location) is now 10 items or less, and let me tell you how much bullshit that is.
— Dani MLT(ASCP) @warkittens@infosec.exchange (@War_Kittens) October 31, 2023
As of yet my Target in Maine hasn’t enforced this. Cause I for sure had more than ten items the other day.
Mind you what’s funny is my Target just did a whole renovation and more than doubled their self check out.
I’m also in Maine and took a rare trip to target last week. There were only self checkouts available and people were struggling! The customer ahead of me asked one of the Target staff to open a register to help elderly, disabled folks, and shoppers with children. The employee said they couldn’t because there weren’t enough staff working.
Any chance you’re talking about the Biddeford Target?
Most of the time when I go in there ONLY the self checkouts are open.
self check-out is an experiment gone wrong. besides ticking everyone off it has lead to an explosion of tech to track people and so much controversy. i don’t know who keeps pushing it. in my mid-size town, the one grocery store that doesn’t have self check-out has seen a huge increase in customers despite having always been the more expensive store.
Corporate greed monsters push it because they’re always trying to eliminate jobs and replace costly employees with something mechanical or digital – more profits for the top! Keep the boards happy! I find it hilarious when it backfires.
This.
I like self-checkout being an introvert who avoids human contact as a default but I LOVE Targets buy online-pickup in person. They have a good app and my local Target is so fast at assembling orders and bringing them to my car. It never takes more than a minute or two for the employee to bring out my order from when I park, and half the time they are waiting for me to pull into the lot. I haven’t seen a Target checkout line in a couple years.
That free order pick up was life-changing for me. I will compile my giant grocery order in my pj’s while sipping coffee, go about my day, and when it’s time to head home, swing by and pull into a parking space while the nice employee puts all my groceries in my trunk for me. It saves me a good hour and a half every weekend. Love it!
The Drive-up ordering not only saves me time, but also keeps me from browsing and making impulse purchases when I’m on a budget.
CL that’s why I like it too, I only get what I need to order, and don’t spend an hour and another $100 browsing and buying stuff I don’t need.
Plus I feel like it employees actual people at the store, as they cut more and more for self checkout.
I am philosophically opposed to self-checkout. If stores want me to do self-checkout, they can PAY me to do it. If I wanted to do self-checkout, I would buy it online.
Exactly. It’s taking jobs away from people who need them. Corps just dont want to pay workers. Also, if you want me to check-out my own stuff then you can let me walk out without checking my receipt and bags.
Exactly.
Lol, same here – not only pay me, but I want an employee discount.
🎯
Agreed. And if it’s become a problem to the point that they have to limit the number of items, time to get rid of it and hire a couple more cashiers.
I hate self checkout. Like I loathe it. I will wait in line any day for an actual person to check me out. Unfortunately when I go to Target now in CO where I just moved there’s always only one cashier. And the Safeway will sometimes operate with zero actual cashiers
Same. I will wait on a super long line with a real cashier rather than go through an empty self-checkout. I have NO IDEA why this is, and it drives my husband insane, but I’ve never been able to stand them. (Which is odd because I’ll usually try to avoid human contact— with strangers — whenever possible).
And the number of jobs they took away is appalling.
I hate self checkout with a passion. I am not trained to scan barcodes or pack bags because I have never been a checker, so self checkout takes me longer. If I have more than a couple of items I’d rather go to a person. Actually all the time I’d rather go to a person, but it’s more and more not an option. It makes me really mad when there’s 12 people in line at the two open registers and I have a full on grocery haul to check out and then I have to go to a self checker.
They better staff up the registers if they’re going to do this!
I’m more mad about it at the grocery store than target. I don’t go inside target as much – the target pickup option is pretty great.
I will only do self-checkout if I have a few things only. But the minute I have a bunch of bananas in my hand or a bag of apples, nope, heading for the normal checkout line. I find the weighing part flustering, especially when people are standing right behind you breathing down your neck to get finished.
Whenever possible I try to check out with a real person, because I prefer people to have actual jobs instead of being replaced by scanners.
Also, the machines are glitchy, 75% of the time require human employee intervention, I don’t know the codes for avocados either so it winds up taking as much time to check out as with a cashier but with bonus aggravation.
Plus, last I checked I don’t work for Target, so being their unpaid cashier is not my thing.
PS, does anyone else get confused when approaching Target checkouts. I always wind up going into a lane and realizing the cashier I thought was going to be checking me out is one lane over, or I’m standing with them in their cubby. Every time I learn the layout, Target does another redesign… it’s like a maze of red panels fortressed with bins of candy and videos every time I go there.
See, I love self-checkout at the grocery store because I can arrange the items in my bags however I want them. My Neighborhood Walmart has 6 small self-checkouts that I only use if I have a couple of items and 3 larger ones that I use when I do my regular grocery shopping and I don’t feel hurried or stressed out if there are people behind me and I’m trying to strategically place my kid’s Lunchables in my bags for maximum efficiency.
“I’m not trained to scan barcodes or pack bags because I’ve never been a checker” it is not that difficult my lord lol.
I hate self checkout for exactly those reasons – I don’t know the code for produce, you’re not paying me to be your cashier, and I, too have accidentally stolen something. And then if I catch it in time I have to go back into your store to the customer service desk to pay for it. I always try to go to the cashier because I also don’t like that it’s taking people’s jobs away.
And I do know friends who have purposefully scammed self checkout when they were desperate (during Covid) and broke. Especially during the holiday season when there are 25 people crammed in that small area and one employee trying to resolve “unidentified item in bagging area” – it’s supposedly quite easy to do.
Corporations could just listen to customers who hate them and hire more people but that’s apparently too hard. Can’t eat into those profit margins and the CEO’s bonus.
it is so easy to do that I once accidentally walked off with a 35 pound tub of cat litter! which is like 1′ square and 2′ tall! (not from target, fwiw)
I did not go back in because by the time I realized it I’d put everything else in the car already. and also because utilizing me as uncompensated labor, they get what they pay for.
I intensely dislike self checkout and only use it when there is literally no cashier. I find it stressful and confusing. I would rather wait in line and have a paid professional handle it than get free cat litter, lol! (and yes I realize my username checks out, hahaha.)
As someone who used to be a manager at Target, this is all about theft. A lot of stores will intentionally redirect part of the cashier budget to the truck unload and the sales floor departments, as those departments never seemed to get enough resources to actually handle all of their incoming freight. So then you’d have stocked shelves and a lack of cashiers. So then they instituted a policy of “backup” where the sales floor would get called to jump on registers during surge times. Inevitably, that led to sales floor employees running back and forth like crazy with piles of junk left everywhere. There’s no way Target is going to re-staff their cashiers back to a level where wait times are adequately reduced – overall, self-check handles 30 percent of shopper volume with a single attendant – so get ready for lots of Karens just in time for Christmas!
I love Tarzhay but this will drive me to almost exclusively utilize their Order Pickup/Drive Up and online ordering services. And, honestly, that’s where their staffing is best and where they find their efficiencies. Maybe they don’t care about damaging their in-store experience because they want to keep expanding their fulfillment services – who knows.
Interesting. I live in a college town & a few years ago we got a “small-format” Target. It has just a few self checkouts that can easily be handled by one employee, but the store is small enough that no one is buying anything in bulk. Plus, it’s convenient for students so they can shop several times a week. And you can order anything they don’t stock for pickup within days.
It’s ideal & I don’t see myself driving to a large Target anytime soon.
I live in LA, and there are a ton of the “city Target” stores, with zero options other than self checkout or going to the customer service desk to check out, which is required if you have things like alcohol, or Benedryl, because we will all fall apart if people can buy Benedryl without showing ID. /longest run-on sentence
Good luck with this one, Target. We liked you because you made us feel special. You’ve completely ruined the entire experience in Los Angeles, let’s see how the rest of the country likes any of it.
Beana–thanks for the explanation. Theft is the same excuse Target used to recently close down a bunch of stores in poor areas–and it’s as ill-thought-out as this. 🤮
I go to walmart more frequently because my town does not have a Target (the nearest one is 20 minute away, Walmart is a mile away) and honestly the quality of the items is pretty much the same. I prefer Target because of their employment practices but I used to think Target had nicer items, and now when I’m in there it just seems like the same things as Walmart, but more expensive.
Limiting self checkout to 10 items doesn’t bother me as long as they increase the number of cashiers accordingly. People go through self checkout with carts full of items and can’t figure out how to scan items and it takes forever sometimes. I think limiting to 10 items makes sense, but again, they need to bring back more cashiers.
I think in some cases the stuff at Target and Walmart is absolutely the same, just sold under different brand names. A couple months ago I bought a five pack of “Auden” underwear only to find the exact same underwear (just different prints) at Wal-mart under the “Joyspun” brand. I bought both, and they are absolutely the same thing. The manufacturer even put them in the same structural packaging, just branded differently.
In a lot of cases, the stuff is also the same as name brand and made by the same companies, at least in the case of food items. I don’t know so much about clothing.
Target has cuter useless things (like holiday decor and cutesy tchotckes) than walmart, and I feel like it’s brighter in there than walmart, but yeah, otherwise same stuff with walmart being a tad cheaper
Yes the holiday decor is one area where I think Target does have better quality generally, seasonal items at Walmart are about as junky as you’d expect.
and I guess Target has Starbucks, lol.
This is just something I noticed bc I go to Walmart all the time (again, mile from my house lol), and then sometimes I’ll be excited to go to Target and I get in there and I’m like…..this stuff is all the same!
Aldi’s is catching up with Target when it comes to cool holiday food stuffs (like gingerbread whipped cream. Hey, don’t judge–it tastes great on gingerbread lattes. 😉) and international/organic foods. And the prices are cheaper–though you should eat their food quickly or freeze it.
It sounds like I’m in the minority but I’m happy to see the new policy. Once self-checkout became a big thing, there was often only one cashier available for everyone else. That line would be long so people would be using self-checkout for a full cart of groceries, tying up the self checkout lines for those of us who had quickly come in to grab a couple of things, may be on our lunch break etc. The new policy is in effect at the Target I frequent and I’ve noticed they now regularly have at least 2-3 cashier lanes open for those with over 10 items. Personally I would bump it up to 15 items but I’m ok with 10.
I was in a Target at a very busy area, not my local one, a few weeks ago, and there was 1 register open and a HUGE line. This was on a Saturday evening. One register open.
I like self checkout. In my smallish town you will see the self checkout lanes full and the cashiers are twiddling their thumbs. My store has recently made the bagging area larger so you aren’t stacking things like Jenga. Sebastian Maniscalco has a funny bit about self checkout. What I hate that is every place I go to wants to start with my phone number or end with my postal code. Never!!
@Uralmom ~ this is one of the reasons I keep my land line!! I won’t give my cell phone number out to stores. There are enough people living in my postal code that I care less about giving that out. But my phone number (land line) has been mine for 37+ years, so it’s already in the public domain (remember white paged phone books?!). Very few people have my cell phone number though, and it doesn’t ring at all if it doesn’t recognized the number.
I detest self check out. I have never, ever, not even once, managed to get through w/o having to have someone come over and sort something out and that wait just pisses me off. I’ve walked away in frustration before. Now I just don’t use them.
Whenever I can, I stand in line for a cashier no matter the store to hopefully support those jobs.
Great. Then hire more people.
I hate self-checkout. I hate it even more when I go into target and the line for self-checkout stretches to the back of the store. I have wait ten minutes just to do it myself? There have been times when I have gone into my local target and self-checkouts are the only option! They really need to figure out their staffing. I’ve walked in, looked at the lines, and walked back out. I don’t have time for that nonsense.
The Whole Foods store where I often shop ripped out their row of express lanes with cashiers — and replaced them with self-checkout machines that don’t take cash. They also sharply reduced the number of cashiers available at the registers. So the lines at the registers often extend throughout the store while multiple “cashiers” supervise the people doing self checkout. As someone who prefers to pay cash for small purchases, it sucks to be in line for the one open register just to grab a couple of items.
I spent many of my formative years behind a cash register in my dad’s grocery store, so I love self checkout. I wish more stores had it. I can scan and bag faster and better than the kids at the register and it’s super helpful when I only have 1-2 things. I like the limit cause I feel like self checkout should be for the people with small purchases, like the express lane, not someone doing their weekly shop.
Self checkout is fun for places where 9 times out of 10 you leave with just a fee items like at the pharmacy. But in some other places, 20 items is base minimum. Like grocery stores. My grocery store is 20 items or less to be able to go self check out and they only have 2 lines open. Wft
Stores should know better their customers habits. Doesnt make sense
Looks like I’m in the minority, but I love self checkout. I love not having to make small talk to the cashier. I love not having the cashier ask me about my purchases, or what a certain vegetable is. I especially like bagging for myself, which sometimes doesn’t happen unless you’re at a self checkout. I also agree that self check out should be for a smaller number of items…some stores have fewer self check out spots, and then you get behind someone with a very full cart…
I like it too. My cart is full and I still want to go self check out. I want to bag everything myself and it was great during the pandemic. Now they turn me around becuase I have more than 20 items in my cart, They limit it to 20. I can’t wait for coupon lady, the peopke who want to have price-match for eveyrhting in the cart, lotery tickets take forever, people contesting prices, or whatever. it’s always longer than what you thought at the cashier’s.
The grocery store closest to my house is about 2/3 self-checkout of some kind (either the little ones or full lanes with the belts on both sides for big hauls), and it’s a nightmare – scanning issues, we customers are way slower than the pros at checking and bagging, etc. At certain time of the day, like 8-close, there are no humans available so you have to use them.
The most enraging thing is that the front of the store is where older women really held down the fort and kept things moving, and they were really, really good at what they did. And some chuckleheads decided their skills and expertise were worthless (“unskilled labor” is a big fat lie). Half of those women are gone now. I hope they found places that value them.
I would love to see the geniuses who came up with this try to check out with a full cart the night before Thanksgiving. Bet that would make them reconsider in a hurry…
I guess I like self-checkout, because the Target near my house is a really small one, so people only buy a couple things at a time. Like someone mentioned above, the thing I hate most is the camera that makes you look like the cryptkeeper.
The Whole Foods nearest me also just recently ripped out a bunch of cashier lanes and replaced with self checkout stations. I guess we’ll see how that affects things. Also, the self-checkout machines at Whole Foods seem a lot easier and less prone to error than the Target ones. It’s faster to self checkout than go to the cashier, but then I never have a cart full of stuff at WF either.
I only stand in line for Trader Joe’s now, and that is the place where I actually buy carts full of stuff. I like most TJ cashiers, bc they get so personally excited by your groceries (ooh, that’s my favorite! have your tried it this way? etc). I wonder if they get trained to do that to connect with the customer? My only peeve with TJ cashiers are the ones who don’t help you bag and just start chatting with a nearby cashier as soon as they are done ringing up, and they leave me to bag everything.
Last year we went to Target because my kids’ cousins hyped up certain brands of cookies and candy that you could get there. Plus, it’s a lot larger than stores in Europe where we live. We were told to go to the self checkout and our cards didn’t work there, but they did by the cash register. Unfortunately, this isn’t limited to Target (cards sometimes work, but not always), but that would be lovely if they could fix that!
I have been a Target customer for years 30+ years and they use to have a “more than 3 people in line open another register “ policy. It was an experience to go there.
They will find out the problem with drive thru is that you only buy what you need. Target is the land if impulse buys.
Goodby “You don’t tell Target what you need – Target tells you what you need.”
As a woc I’m not a fan of self checkout. It’s just another way to face hostile bias. The supervising attendant at whole foods was an older white woman who profiled me yesterday thinking I was going to somehow not pay for my 2 items. She then jabbed buttons making bag or no bag decisions for me and when I told her to back off after she hit the pay with card button for me instead of letting me use the pay with the prime app option she screeched at me how I can’t use cash. I told her there are other options and she immediately called for help to back her up. Her co worker repeated what I had just said and she dismissed it with oh I didn’t know. I watched her hover after I was done over a father and son who were also poc. No white people were bothered or harmed. I’ve been over policed at Costco self checkout and am suspicious when the attendants have offered and without my permission said they’ve scanned big item number 1,2 and 3 only to find out at the exit where they check your reciept that the item an attendant said was scanned was in fact not scanned. I’ve had that happen twice now so I double check the check out screen and don’t trust the attendant to be acting in good faith especially when it’s a white woman smiling incessantly at me. I’ve learned the hard way they do that when they’re about to do something incredibly harmful to me. Short of it is in the area I live I visibly carry the receipt after checking it even if I’m in a cashier check out lane because their incompetence and willful neglect will cost me and have no consequences for them. it’s still exhausting because I’ve had experiences where the fancy grocery store has filed a complaint with the police over theft weeks after a shopping trip. And if it wasn’t for me photographing my purchases to split costs with my partner and taking pictures of reciepts for my taxes I’d probably be in legal trouble. If it wasnt for me liking to grocery shop or wanting to personally pick out produce I would probably go for online shopping and curb side pick up only. Ulta’s curbside pick up BTW is in store pick up in my area and defeats the purpose. A lot of the covid era services are getting watered down.
Ugh, I’m sorry that is a lot to deal with just trying to go about your day
WAL*MART used to own ASDA in the UK. This chain was founded by the Asquith brothers in 1965 and has recently been sold on to the Issa brothers. They have three forms of self-service tills for the basket, the trolley, and the ‘scan and go’ customers plus the usual manned checkouts.
Our late Queen used one in Sainsbury’s back in 2019 and even she could see how a dumb machine could easily be cheated, which is why video recording has been added to the machines to try and stop this.
However, even normal usage can be difficult. I’ve had lots of problems with badly printed / applied discount labels and unrecognised vouchers which all need manual correction from staff.
The ten or less limit is used in some stores here but generally not I would say.
I’m someone who likes to go to the store as early in the morning as possible on weekends (I work in an office M-F). There are NEVER cashiers at that time at Kroger and I dislike doing it myself so much! If I go to Meijer, they have 1-2 cashiers starting at 7am so I’ve been going there more often.
As an introvert who hates small talk, I honestly love self-checkout and it’s a game for me. That being said, my Target literally has 20 “regular” lanes and there is consistently only one of those open. So if they roll out this policy, they’re going to have to hire a lot more people (which is good – but in my area at least, there’s a shortage of people to work retail post-covid). If this was about shortening wait times, just add more self-checkouts, but it’s not. I think the 10 item limit is too low, though. 20 makes more sense to me. I hardly ever have to wait at self checkout and there’s no limit currently. If they did this and didn’t add an adequate number of cashiers, I’d just switch to online pickup which would mean fewer impulse purchases, so good for my wallet! I just really like to limit in person interactions as much as possible lol. Their drive-up return service is a dream.
Buckle up, Introverts, Target is going to make your life absolutely miserable. The store I go to most often has EVERYTHING behind locked doors now, I had to activate a sensor when I needed to get a big pack of Dove bar soap. BAR SOAP is locked up, it only goes downhill from there. I spend all of my time waiting for employees to respond so I can get them to unlock a case, and it’s miserable.
I used to love shopping at Target. Now I only like shopping at stores that aren’t under this level of lock down. Shout out to the Target in Visalia, for still being an enjoyable experience, at least as of July. My son and I were giddy, we actually stopped to shop on the way to our vacation, we were that excited.
In Modesto razors, underwear, diapers, deodorant, formula are locked up!
I don’t do self check out. I don’ t work there, why should I check myself out? I’m not going to take real jobs from people so greedy folks can get more profit for themselves. The line is always ridiculous and the cashier is shorter and more efficient because they can handle issues that pop up.
I suspect some of this is also local police departments and prosecutors declining to charge alleged self check out theft. It’s not a case they want to put before a jury. They are also really pissed at all these places cutting their security budget to nothing and expecting the local police departments to pick up the slack. Most of these big box stores get huge local tax breaks, so they are a drain on local government rather than bringing in revenue.
Honestly, if I were on a jury, I’d always vote not guilty on someone who fooled the scanner system.
Rapscallion cheapskate corporate aholes. I almost never use self checkout for this exact reason.
I am “meh” about self-checkout, but I do occasionally go to Kroger early in the morning and they have no cashiers until 9am. So they have an employee standing there watching you scan everything, and I had a whole cart of groceries. One of them got really snotty with me when I missed the sticker on a piece of produce and was trying to look it up to weigh it, and she came running over and said, “It has a sticker on it!” and grabbed it from me and scanned it.
Then I had that “unexpected item in the bagging area” BS going on and she was all SIGH and came over and and aggressively cleared it and told me I had removed something and then put it back and that’s why it was doing that. It wasn’t my best day so I was a little snotty to her and said, hey, chill out. Maybe you should, I don’t know, help me do this (I was the only one in the checkout) or god forbid open a register for an order this big. She said, “WE DON’T HAVE CASHERIS UNTIL 9 AM, YOU SHOULD PLAN ACCORDINGLY!”
This was the same Kroger that a cashier yelled at me for not bagging my own groceries in an actual checkout lane by snottily saying, “Ma’am, I’m alone here, you could help me.” I had less than 20 things, probably, and I was trying to input my “shopper number” and navigate their “do you want to give to charity screens” and all the other bs screens they have. I’m happy to help bag but I need to pay first because otherwise you’ll yell at me about that! I won’t go to that Kroger anymore.
There’s one cashier I avoid at our kroger bc she’s just so…mean. She was in a bad mood one day while ringing me up and even had a bagger (rare nowadays) and she said something I thought was a joke so I laughed and she snapped “it’s not funny” and I finally got rude back and said “I thought it was funny.” I’m not exactly sure why she was so unhappy but I always make it a point to be patient and friendly when checking out bc cashiers have a hard job, but don’t fckin pick a fight with me because I’ll leave all this food here for you to explain to your manager and take my business to Safeway.
The self check out line was so long at mine the other day. One lady was doing a full cart. I stood in line watching her. Finally checked out and left. And she was still scanning things as I left. Not an efficient use of those things at all.
We have a high end grocery store chain in our city and they recently introduced a single self check out lane and I love how efficient it is. You open the app and scan each item as you put it in the basket. Then you approach the self check out and scan something to finish the transaction. It automatically bills your card on file and you are out the door. Very handy and easy to use. When I first started using it they would flag me to check that I scanned everything. After a few successful checks they don’t bother me much anymore. I also don’t use it when I am buying many items.
see, i come at this from the other side. i like to get to my local target first thing in the AM on a weekend to beat the crowds, but we’re in an urban area where most shoppers are buying small numbers of items, so 9 times out of 10 there is NO “real” cashier at all when i go, so i’m left to check out a cart’s worth of stuff and bag it while crammed into the self check out corral. you need a second cart just to have somewhere to put the things because there’s’ no belt to unload your cart onto, and you need the attendant helping constantly anyway. i would HAPPILY wait in a line for a lone real live person, as long as i don’t need to juggle the cart unloading, swiping, bagging and reloading all by myself in a 2 foot square corner.
Please also get rid of the Target Circle bs, I don’t want too scan stuff with my phone, I don’t have my glasses, I’m tired, there are so many apps already I want to scream.
I am so curious as to how this will work out.
1. If they don’t add more live cashiers, the live cashier lines will be so long that I can see many shoppers getting strategic, “oh, I have 13 items in my basket but those 10+ item lines are so long, I’m going to ditch 3 items so I can do self checkout and get out of here quicker.” So now they are losing $.
2. So many commenters on this thread talked about using the order/pick up app instead. This, as many said, reduces their number of impulse buys. I feel like a good 50% of my Target purchases ARE impulse buys. And the joke people make about never getting out of a Target spending less than $100 tells me that I am not alone. “Impulse buys” might be inaccurate, sure, I’ll see a holiday decoration I don’t need and buy it occasionally, but it’s more like, I go in for laundry detergent and socks, and as I walk through I see 10 other things that I kind of need, but not so badly that I would think to order them if I was ordering online and just doing curbside pickup. So again, that is a loss of revenue for them.
That little poppet in the advertisements is absolutely adorable, with her little cart and sweet face! Reminds me of my lovely daughter.
I have a love/hate relationship with self-checkout. I am overall an anxious person and regular checkout, I get stressed with the people waiting behind me in line as I get stuff out of my cart, put it on the conveyor, and then put everything in my reusable bags before I pay. I always feel like people are waiting impatiently behind me and I want to get out of there as fast as possible.
Self-check out is great when I have a few items but I don’t like doing it when I have a cart full of groceries. It feels like it takes me forever, I often get an error message for things I try to scan and it takes twice as long when the employee standing nearby as to intervene 2 or 3 times as I scan my items. But regular check out will have a long line and only 2 lanes open and self-checkout seems like it might be faster.
In sum, I hate checkout altogether lol.
I have three kids, I’m not going inside a Target. I’m going to roll up to the car pick up spots and have my items and Starbucks delivered to me.
People with money have made it a game to steal from self check-out. There was a website where they would exchange tips. I think they closed it a few years ago.
I was at meijer a few months ago. An extremely well dressed fellow stole a case of wine while the self check out lady was watching me. After she left me she discovered that he just walked away without paying. Then she looked at me. I looked at her and walked away. That has happened to me so many times. People know bigoted ckerks will watch certain people. So they wait on the side for a distraction.
Now that I have told you you will notice it. The guy running out the door. The woman crouched in the aisle by the door. The person who is standing at self checkout but there are no beeps.
Ours started doing this a month ago. I had one item over so I did the honest thing; the issue of course is they only ever have two registers open. And then of course you’ve got your 11 tiny items in a basket and you’re stuck waiting for who knows how long behind people with cartloads of stuff. I get it, because I’ve seen some ridiculous nonsense in self check out, I just wish customers on the whole were more considerate. This to me is akin to another pet peeve when people order 7 combos in a drive thru instead of just going inside; the drive thru line is meant to be efficient.
Also this shit doesn’t work if you don’t have an employee willing to be “the bad guy” and call out customers who think that rule doesn’t apply to them. I know it doesn’t work because in the month I’ve experienced the change and followed the rule, I have observed plenty who don’t. Why bother if nobody enforces it? Bet if I try though I’ll be the one getting called out, so I just mean mug all the wannabe VIPs.
What, does Target _want_ people to stop brick-and-mortar shopping? First they closed down a batch of stores in poor areas claiming that “theft” made them “unprofitable”–now this nonsense. I’ve been using online buy then pick-up because the lines at my local T have been so long–and this won’t change my mind.
I hate Target because of the long lines to pay for my crap. My store is a larger version of Target and they only have 4 self check and never enough cashiers. It does not matter what time or day you go. You wait. I like self check, so I go to Wal-Mart. Lots of self check machines. In and out quickly and worth the extra 10 minutes drive.
The last time I was in Target it was about 11am & I had a completely FULL cart. There literally wasn’t a single cashier and it was clear that 1 wasn’t coming. Took me forever to check everything out & I was mad the entire dang time
Those cutie pies in the pics just melt your heart.
I am getting a new Target in my area next year. Super excited.
WalMart has implemented a new policy for the Holidays and beyond that there will be an associate at each self checkout register to “help” you checkout. Note to WalMart- That is a cashier, So stupid and frustrating.
When I shop at WalMart it is usually bulk so I have at least two carts full. I can’t get them to open a cashier line at all. I am having to check out everything self checkout while there are large lines forming behind me. I hate it and so embarrassed.
It’s not a terrible job. Why would you think it’s terrible? I worked as a checker at a major grocery chain and macys, while in college. In 2000 I made $22 hr and union benefits. 🤷♀️
I was at the Edina, MN Target last Friday and a very nice employee was telling the customer in front of me that self checkout was 10 items or less. I agree, it’s annoying when someone ties up a self checkout with a bursting full cart, but then yes, they need to have more cashiers in the regular lane.