It's Time to Cut Out the Middle Man

The main story

Department store chain Kohl’s is letting shoppers take control of holiday shopping’s least favorite activity.

On Thursday, Kohl’s announced its plan of piloting a new “self-return” concept where shoppers can return items without having to wait in line and speak to a cashier.

Rolling out to 200 stores, the pilot is accompanied by a separate “self-pickup” test in 100 stores where shoppers can pick up purchases made through the stores’ website.

Koh’s Chief Technology & Supply Chain Officer states that through these pilots, “you don’t have to give anyone else control of the process.”

The company’s preparation ahead of the holiday shopping season hopes to give the chain a competitive advantage this year.

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Teachable Moment

“Let’s make things more complicated and annoying.” - Said no one ever.

Kohl’s plans to streamline several awful shopping scenarios by cutting out the middle man is an excellent example of creating a win-win scenario in a challenging business climate.

The holiday season (looking at you, Black Friday) hosts some of the most competitive and cutthroat moments for retailers, leaving many to scramble to make the process more enjoyable.

In-store shopping and returns are already a pain, but simplifying it to where your customers are happier and your staff ends up less stressed in the process?

Not a bad plan.

We can all take a page from Kohl’s book and identify where we can cut out unnecessary people or redundancies in our internal processes.

After all, the end of Q4 is right around the corner.