Customers used to hold up Target as an example of how to run large, yet sparkling stores.

Yet in recent years, shopper complaints about sloppier aisles, longer checkout lines, locked-up merchandise and out-of-stock items have dogged the Minneapolis-based retailer, contributing to sagging sales.

To help fix that, Target is making a move that may seem counterintuitive: It's shaking up its online strategy. The move is a response to Target's unique strategy of fulfilling the vast majority of its e-commerce orders at its stores, which has stretched employees and inventory thin.

The company is now rolling out a new approach that designates only some of its stores as locations where employees pick and pack orders in cardboard boxes to ship to customers' homes. Other stores have stopp

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