Louisiana Target Locations Making Big Changes To Policies

A trip to Target is never boring. You go there with a pretty basic shopping list that includes food for the kids' lunches, shampoo, and laundry soap, but for some reason, you leave with $250 worth of office supplies, clothes, and décor that you didn't realize you needed.

If you shop at Target, you should be aware of a recent policy change the large box retailer announced that would impact customers in Louisiana. If you come to regret any of your Target impulse buys, the little adjustment could spell significant changes.

“Target reserves the right to deny returns, refunds and exchanges including but not limited to prevent fraud, suspected fraud or abuse,”

reads Target’s updated return policy statement.

Target's return policy, which stipulates that most unopened items in "new condition" may be returned within 90 days, hasn't changed, a representative for the retailer acknowledged to TheStreet that it has updated the wording of the policy.

There are numerous ways for customers to commit return fraud. In a survey released by the National Retail Federation, 49% of shops reported that they had received returns of "used, non-defective" goods, while 44% reported that customers had even attempted to return "shoplifted or stolen" goods. Additionally, according to 37% of shops, customers have tried returning items that were bought using "fraudulent or stolen" payment methods.

Target made this decision in response to numerous employees who have recently complained on social media about customers abusing the company's return policy.

Target Battles Alarming Retail Theft:
Target has previously experienced some difficulties with regular retail theft. Target closed nine of its locations in four states last year as a result of "theft and organized retail crime," which the company said threatened both corporate performance and customer safety.

Target CEO Brian Cornell subsequently disclosed, in a November interview with CNBC, that the company will be making technological investments and working with legislators and business partners to combat retail crime.

During the interview, Cornell stated, "We're really pleased with how some of the local DAs (district attorneys) are responding." To ensure that local DAs have a better understanding of the difficulties we face, our staff as well as other retail teams have actually been walking stores with them.

Thus far, it seems like Target is benefiting from their efforts. Target has successfully reduced shrink across all of its stores, according to Michael Fiddelke, Chief Financial Officer, during a conference call on August 21 to discuss the company's second-quarter earnings for 2024. The amount of inventory that a business loses to theft, damage, etc. is called shrink.

Fiddelke stated on the call, "We've seen better-than-expected results in our most recent store inventory counts, resulting in a bigger-than-expected financial benefit in Q2... even though our guidance assumes that the year-over-year benefit from shrink would increase this quarter."