Target 2003 Annual Report Download - page 9

7
Store Experience and Growth
Fast, friendly service. Clean, fun-to-shop stores. Knowledgeable
team members and the merchandise our guests want and need most.
They’re all components of a Target store experience that no other
retailer can match.
ast, Fun and Friendly Feedback from our
guests plays an important role in our efforts to
deliver a consistent, convenient and enjoyable
Target shopping experience. It has led us to
place significant importance on factors such as
speed, store cleanliness and excitement, and merchandise
quality, trend and presentation.
In 2003, we continued to invest in technology and
service initiatives that enhance our guests’ satisfaction
during each of their visits to a Target store — many with
an emphasis on improving speed.
• We added nearly 10,000 new price scanners that allow
Target team members to quickly verify product avail-
ability, to facilitate merchandise price checks and to
locate items anywhere within our stores.
• When guests in our stores have questions, they don’t
have time to wait. To make it easier and more con-
venient for them to get the help they need, we’ve
installed more red service phones throughout Target
stores and adopted measures to improve our response
time to guest calls.
• Speed at checkout continues to be a top priority, and
during 2003, we further reduced our guests’ length of
wait to pay. Specifically, we reiterated our objective to
allow no more than two guests in a checkout line at
any given time; we increased our investment in cashier
training; and we implemented systems that seamlessly
give our team members the capability to open addi-
tional check lanes when needed.
• Even our ability to process merchandise returns has
been simplified and expedited, making our guests’
hectic lives much easier. With our receipt-lookup
system, we are able to process a merchandise return
within 90 days of its purchase, even without the original
receipt, if the purchase was made using a check or
credit card.
F
2004 Prototype To provide
a shopping experience that
our guests prefer, we continue
to evolve our store design,
merchandise assortment,
signing and presentation.
In our newest iteration, we
have realigned merchandise
adjacencies to create more
powerful category presenta-
tions and we have expanded
or edited our assortments
to better reflect our guests’
shopping patterns. On the
exterior, our design and
materials complement the
local architecture and natural
landscape and integrate
improvements in accessibility,
safety and lighting.