Home Depot
Two visits, jammed self-checkout and too few cashiers

I have been in this store twice in the last 10 days, both times in the early evening, once on a Saturday and once on a Monday. It was pretty much the same lousy service both times.

Only two cashiers are on duty at the registers, and one more oversees the four self-serve registers.

On my first visit I bought three brooms and a large industrial dustpan. I used the self-service registers because there was quite a line at the two other registers that were open. Self-serve registers were designed for grocery stores where everything fits in a plastic bag. The brooms and dustpan don't fit in bags. So when I scan the first item and the sensor in the bagging area detects no weight, the system freezes up. The cashier, of course, is helping one of the other three people having similar problems. At one point the system told me to place my item in the bag (it does not fit in a bag), so I tried to set it on the counter. The system responds that there is an unexpected item in the bagging area and demands that it be removed. Then it repeats the demand to put something in the bagging area. Finally the cashier intervenes, and I go on to the next item. Same story. I spent more time at the self-serve register that night than anywhere else in the entire store. (Normally I love self-service registers and have very few problems.)

Tonight I went back to the same store. All I needed was a hole saw, one item, about eight bucks. This time there is quite a traffic jam at the self-serve registers because one person is trying to check out a cart with about 200 redwood pickets for a fence. The size of the cart makes one register inaccessible. So I look toward the far end of the store and see the only two open regular registers. They don't look so busy, maybe three people waiting at each register, so I walk down there and take my place in line behind the third person at one of the registers. Suddenly I hear someone yelling at me from behind. It is a customer, and he is clearly angry at me, and I don't know why. Then he says, "The line starts back there," and points behind him. There are like 20 more customers standing in line for the two registers. They had been nice enough to leave a gap in the line so others could get through, but I had not seen them.

I have to admit that I was tempted to walk out tonight with merchandise in hand without paying. But something tells me that while there is a shortage of cashiers, there is no shortage of security personnel. Since I needed the hole saw and had already invested a half hour just trying to pay, I waited for the self-service register, paid and left. I won't be back.

Why on earth would any retailer make people stand in line like that? It is not a fluke, because I saw the same rotten service on two different visits.

Maybe we should have a shop-a-thon at stores that have such contempt for the customer. We all agree to meet at one particular Home Depot at the same time and date and find items that we actually intend to purchase. We place those items in our shopping carts and head for the registers at about the same time. If they have enough cashiers, we pay for our stuff and leave satisfied. But they won't have enough cashiers, and customers will line up. That's when we just abandon those shopping carts in the checkout lines and walk out. Not only do they get to see the sales they missed, but they will have to assign personnel to put it all back on the shelves.

Company: Home Depot
Country: USA
State: California
City: Sacramento
Address: 8000 Folsom Blvd
Phone: 9163813181

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