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Target Corp. is pushing back on media reports this week that it has changed its policies around self-checkout technology in response to shoplifting or customer dissatisfaction. A number of news outlets reported over the weekend and yesterday that the retail giant has limited self-checkout registers to 10 items or fewer, but Target made that announcement more than a year ago. “Target is not removing self-checkout,” a spokesperson told Fast Company when reached for comment. “We offer it in the vast majority of our stores and have no plans to change this.” The company declined to share additional details about how theftor “shrink” in industry parlancehas shaped its self-checkout policies. At the time of its original announcement in March 2024, Target said its 10-items-or-fewer rule was based on “guest feedback.” In a fact sheet updated this week, Target said that its transaction times have improved at both human-run and automated checkout lanes since the policy was implemented and that customers typically like having both options. Does self-checkout actually impact inventory “shrink”? Some surveys have indicated that self-checkout options can and do contribute to shoplifting, as highlighted in a research roundup published by Capital One in February. Even as the technology has become commonplace over the last two decades, companies are still trying to strike the right balance between being technology forward and letting technology run roughshod over the customer experienceand sometimes they admittedly veer too far in the latter direction. At the same time, our perception of how bad the problem is might not always match reality: While 69% of respondents to a 2023 LendingTree survey said that they believed self-checkout lanes make it easier to steal, only 15% admitted to actually doing so. Is 15% bad enough to abandon self-checkout in favor of having more human cashiers? That’s up to retailers and their accountants to figure out. In the short term, don’t expect big changes at Target. The company only admits that it will “continue evolving to match guests with the right checkout options so they can get what they need.”
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E-Commerce
Ive had more caviar since starting work on the Celestiq than I have during the entirety of my career at General Motors, Erin Crossley, Cadillacs design director for color and trim, says before tucking into a ramekin at Gucci Osteria on Rodeo Drive. The uptick in caviar consumption is a leading indicator that Cadillac is going upscale. As design director for the Cadillac Celestiq, the American luxury brands new, bespoke electric vehicle, Crossley sits with customers from all over the world and mines more than 350,000 permutations to deliver their perfect personalization. [Photo: GM] The low-slung EV with a 303 mile range starts at $340,000, pushing the American automaker into the realm of German, Italian and English luxury sports cars. But the price can tick much, much higher, with options from leather floors to eucalyptus fiber mats. We know that these clients have the means to do anything, she says. Its like building a house: How detailed do you want to get? [Photo: GM] Return to glory days Cadillac owned the luxury market for most of the twentieth century before ceding share to more exciting foreign rivals. GM hopes the arrival of the Celestiq heralds the brands comeback and represents a return to its glory days. With its exaggerated proportions and brash demeanor, the Celestiqs design evokes the American style and optimism of Cadillacs midcentury heyday, according to Michael Simcoe, VP of Global Design. Simcoe, the handlebar-mustachioed designer who is set to retire this year, considers the Celestiq his swan song. [Photo: GM] For Cadillac to come back as a brand, it needed to do what Cadillac had always done, and that’s create vehicles that exaggerated proportion and were very American in their style, he tells Fast Company. Its a very optimistic, very strident view of the world, which was very big in the 50s through 60s and 70s in America. In particular, the Celestiq drew inspiration from the 1957 Eldorado Brougham, a limited-edition sedan filled with luxury features; it was Cadillacs last hand-built car for nearly 70 years. With its low stance, large wheels and wheelbase longer than the full-size Cadillac Escalade SUVs, the Celestiq defies category, Simcoe says. At this level of luxury, everything is much bigger, he says. Think about the other premium brands around, and they’re traditionally executed as a three box sedan with a big trunk. But the Celestiq has a low, fastback profile that makes it stand out on the road. [Photo: GM] Built by hand GM builds two Celestiqs a day on average, a far cry from the automakers higher volume vehicles churned out on a production line. The car is built by hand in Warren, Michigan, at GMs Tech Centera midcentury marvel itself commissioned by legendary designer and automotive executive Harley Earl and created by renowned architect Eero Saarinen. [Photo: GM] But the car also uses 3D-printed parts made from aluminum, stainless steel, and titanium. And like the Brougham, which introduced air suspension to the market, the Celestiq showcases a couple of other firsts: a smart glass roof featuring four quadrants for passengers to control opacity, as well as electronic shutters that obscure screen content while driving and can be controlled remotely via a QR code on the phone. It’s very rare in an engineer’s career where you get to go completely off script and make up a bespoke car, says Tony Roma, executive chief engineer. The idea was, when you’re making a statement to hang your whole brand on, you don’t want somebody to walk up and find that piece of pastic and go, Oh, really, like, this is the best you could do, right? For the interior, it became an obsession of the team that all of the little metal parts were either printed or made from finely detailed casting. [Photo: GM] Who wants to buy a $340,000 Cadillac? Cadillac has declined to reveal the number of Celestiqs it plans to build, but it will need to find a viable customer base ready to spend somewhere in the mid-six figures for a Detroit-made car. The value proposition lies in the customization process, which usually takes place in a screening room at Cadillac House in New York or at a mobile popup like the Pendry West Hollywood, where Crossley and her team walked me through a process so extensive I forgot I wasnt a paying customer. [Photo: GM] When we design a vehicle with a customer, we won’t share that same specification with anyone else, so you’ll know that there’s no one else who has a car with exactly the same specification as yours, Simcoe says. Do you need to do that? No, but it’s important to the people who are buying this car to go through the process and own it. [Photo: GM] To herald its return to luxury, Cadillacs new playbook has the brand meeting customers where they are, feverishly expanding its presence in the luxury market over the past three years. In 2022, the carmaker signed a multi-year deal to become the automotive sponsor of the U.S. Open Tennis Championships. The following year, the brand returned to the prestigious 24 Hours of Le Mans race in France after a decades-long hiatus. On Saturday, it unveiled a logo for its inaugural Formula 1 team ahead of its plans to join the grid in 2026. [Photo: GM] Ultimately, GM hopes that some of this glamour trickles down into its more quotidian EV lineup, as it aspires to make Cadillac the best-selling luxury EV brand in the U.S. this year. [Photo: GM] Yo, VIP, lets kick it I took the Celestiq for a test drive in Los Angeles. As the morning rush faded away on the 101, Vanilla Ice came on the 38-speaker Dolby Atmos sound system, and I was transported into the rappers ode to the open road. Luxury, I realized, is what you dont notice. No noise, no bumps, no trafficalthough, to be fair, the Celestiqs extravagant proportions drew a share of the rubberneckers. Instead, I felt as though I was gliding through air as I ascended the Angeles Crest Highwaya career-first out of the thousands of cars Ive tested. [Photo: GM] The wide open space between my vantage point and the cars front pillara mark of distinction in the premium segmentcaptures cloudless blue skies on a 76-degree day. A sedan thats longer than an Escalade and takes four months minimum to build isnt exactly practical, but at this moment, this drive is in a class of its own.
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E-Commerce
New Tesla car sales plunged across Europe in April even as sales of other electric vehicle brands soared, in part due to backlash against CEO Elon Musks support for Europe’s far-right politics, as well as growing competition from both European and Chinese EV carmakers, according to Reuters. Last month, Tesla’s new car sales in the U.K. and Germany tanked to their lowest in over two years, falling 62% and 46% year on year, respectively, even as demand in both countries rose for EVs. And in Spain, there was more bad news for Tesla, with new sales falling 36% in April 2025 compared with the the same month a year earlier, according to data from ANFAC, the Spanish Association of Automobile and Truck Manufacturers, as reported by Reuters. Shares of Tesla stock (NYSE: TSLA), which have been a roller-coaster ride since the beginning of the year, were down about 3% in midday trading on Tuesday at the time of this writing. Tesla’s billionaire CEO Elon Musk’s politics, both at home and abroad, have cost him dearly. Americans have continued to boycott Tesla and protest Musk, angered by his role in the Trump administration and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which has ordered widespread layoffs of government workers and slashed federal budgets, wreaking havoc on the government’s ability to function both efficiently and effectively. In Europe, where Musk has shown support for far-right politics, just as in the United States, Europeans have been protesting and boycotting the EV carmaker, in addition to vandalizing Tesla showrooms and charging stations. Musk has pledged to cut back on his government meddling, but for now it seems the damage to his reputation and company is already done. A look at the numbers shows that despite Tesla still being one of the largest electric car manufacturers in the world, its market share is weakening, especially in Europe. Earlier this month, the European Automobile Manufacturers Association confirmed that Tesla sales fell 49% in Europe in the first two months of 2025, despite the fact that overall EV sales in Europe were up 28%. April’s numbers showed where exactly that pain point was. Tesla sales plunged an eye-popping 81% in Sweden, to their lowest since October 2022, and were down 73.8% in the Netherlands when compared with the same month last year. Sales fell 67% and 59%, respectively, in Denmark and France, and 33% in Portugal. In the first quarter of 2025, Tesla sales in Spain fell 17%, while electrified vehicles sales, of both hybrid and electric vehicles, were up a whopping 54%. Chinese EV automakers BYD, MG, and Omoda were up 644%, 80%, and 346% so far this year, respectively, per ANFAC.
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E-Commerce
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