One thing retail consultants do is to watch people checking out and note the obstacles. A classic problem is checkout clutter - impulse buy items at the checkout getting in the way of putting merchandise on the counter. In stores without carts, checkout clutter reduces sale amount, because customers subconsciously don't want to reach the counter and have no place to put the stuff. The Gap, which got this, always had big, clear counters. Bed, Bath and Beyond doesn't get this.

Eventually I held my wallet aloft and asked why nobody here would take my money.

I had an experience like that decades ago, in a large J.C. Penny in New Jersey. I'd just moved to the area and was buying a whole set of linens, pillows, and towels in the middle of the day. So I had an armload of merchandise stacked above my head. I reached a counter in the multi-floor department store but there were no staff around. No one on the whole floor.

I saw a phone behind the counter, so I dialed 0 and got someone. I told them I was at the checkout in Linens and there was no one on the sales floor.

Several minutes later, about six people showed up. Not clerks. The store manager, some junior people, and a grey-haired executive in an expensive suit who was deferred to by the others. By now, there were two other customers lined up behind me. The manager sent off some of the junior people to search for the missing clerk, and they came back empty. The store manager looked scared. The grey-haired executive didn't say a word to his people. He just unlocked the cash register and handled the transaction himself. He did two transactions before someone was found to take over.

I suspected I had just seen the end of some careers.