What’s in this article:
- Target’s new initiative to help customers find their school list and shop it fast – School List Assist – has been launched – but how well does it work?
Back-to-school shopping starts as early as July, as there are regions in the United States that start the academic calendar as early as the end of the month. But this year, Target was already primed for it by the end of June.
On June 29, I popped into Target to pick up my BOPIS order. The packed-up bags included several copies of this two-sided postcard-sized notice:
Clearly, Target wanted to get its customers thinking about back-to-school shopping even before the July 4 holiday. To do so, they’ve introducing School List Assist, which makes it easy to pick up all that is required in one shot.
But this easy approach to getting everything on the list depends on the teachers at the school having uploaded it already. Likely, that is not the case for schools in my area that will only resume at the end of August at the earliest.
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I put the feature to the test and was pleasantly surprised to discover that it could find all the schools for a zip code, allowing parents to select from the menu rather than having to type it in. However, as I suspected, none of them have uploaded a list as of yet. Target had prepared for that, though, with an offer of emailing the customer as soon as the school does put in the list, as you can see in the screenshot below:
As a parent who spent a lot of time waiting in line at stores like Staples to gather up all the requisite notebooks, folders, etc., that teachers required, I would have found something like this a welcome convenience combined with the assurance that Target prices are competitive. I just hope they do get the cooperation of the schools to make it work.