As a retailer I have seen a lot of new drinks come and go over the years. How many of these do YOU remember? Incredibly, I can honestly say I remember all of them except Cisco, Southpaw and Cocaine. Some of these I’m actually surprised to hear are gone, such as Lowenbrau Read More…
Author: RetailGuy
I have worked in retail for over 40 years. I've seen the good, the bad, the ugly, and the completely unbelievable.
California Women Can Soon Go Right To The Pharmacist For Birth Control
So even though I live in California and work in a drug store, this is the first I’ve heard of this. Our company doesn’t always communicate what’s going on in pharmacy to the front store folks. I think this is a good thing, the easier it is to get birth control into women’s hands the Read More…
Perception is Reality
This is SO true. I honestly believe that CVS intends this because they make the font so small on everything except FREE. They also constantly have “Buy 1 get 1 50% OFF!” sales, and of course the 50% OFF is huge, so the customer thinks the product is Read More…
Walmart Adjusts the Thermostat to Warm Worker Relations
So this strikes a familiar chord for me, except instead of needing the thermostat set higher, we need it set lower. My employer has apparently calculated the savings if it has their energy management system crank the temperature up in all 7500+ stores by 1 degree, which doesn’t sound like much until you’re Read More…
10 Snack Foods Originally Sold as Medicines
Long ago, items that we’d think of as unhealthy today were actually marketed as medicines. What a shameful thing to do! Oh wait, we still do that today. Here’s the ingredient list for Coke’s Vitamin Water: Reverse osmosis water, crystalline fructose, cane sugar, less than 0.5% of: citric acid, magnesiumlactate and calcium Read More…
Findings of new CVS Health study help shape new smoking cessation program for CVS Health colleagues – Drug Store News
CVS tested a smoking-cessation program and found out that if you pay out a reward the participants were more likely to follow through and quit smoking. Kudos to CVS for discovering that if you spend money to offer an incentive to employees for doing something, they are more likely to do it. (Not that Read More…
Target will roll out RFID
Here comes some more technology. Target is going to start using “smart labels” which will actually tell them how much of a certain item is where without having to psychically see it in person. If you have that kind of data on an item, you could actually see it leave the stores Read More…
Sunday Soapbox: Corporate Visits
Everyone who has worked in retail has experienced the joy of having a visit from an executive, whether they be the company CEO, President, or perhaps an Area Vice President, but generally these are the guys who you always know are coming and are expected to spruce up the store for. When I ran Read More…
5 Horrible Things You Learn Working at a Convenience Store
Another great story from Cracked.com, this one is by someone who had the misfortune to work in a convenience store. People often describe my company as “A convenience store with a pharmacy inside” and they’re mostly correct, seeing as how high our prices are. So I can identify with some of these things (especially the Read More…
If Product Packaging Had To Tell The Terrifying Truth
Another great list from cracked.com, showing what would happen if there truly WAS truth in packaging. Anyone else remember the black snakes you lit on fire? Wow those were fun. For about 15 minutes. And now I have to go through my cupboard and fridge to throw out the “I Can’t Believe it’s Read More…