Another successful quarter for CVS/Health, which used to be CVS/Pharmacy. No truth to the rumor that they will be changing the name to CVS/Profits soon. Same store sales are up 1.2% despite the front-end sales being down a whopping 6.1%. Most of that drop is of course due to the lack of tobacco 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.
The 34 Most Unintentionally Disturbing Children’s Products
This is from cracked.com. They have some awesome writers there. Apparently every company needs to have a “male genitalia” expert to advise them when their products look like a penis, or if it’s making something else project out from where a penis would be. Even Wonder Woman agrees, she’s spreading her Read More…
It’s Great When Customers Step Up
This is me when a customer is being an idiot to me. If you’ve worked in retail you’ve undoubtedly had an abusive customer who was taking out their anger on you for no apparent reason. I’ve had my fair share and even had a lady smack me on the shoulder with her cane at Read More…
Working In Retail Sucks, It’s Official.
“It’s OK kid, you’ll only be doing this for the next 20 years or so.” Here’s the best 50 companies to work for in America, using the Fortune 500 companies and six criteria to determine job satisfaction. Since I have low job satisfaction, high job stress, can’t telecommute (in fact, can’t even sign on Read More…
8 Psychological Tricks of Restaurant Menus
I’ve always been fascinated by the psychology part of retail. I was always taught that if you have two sizes of an item, the bigger size always goes on the right (smaller—>bigger) and while it seemed logical for some reason, it made more sense when you realize that most people are right-handed so they Read More…
20 Over-The-Top Products For Pets
I am not a violent man. But if I saw someone put their dog on a treadmill and made them chase a plastic bone, I might hurt someone. And putting a fake wig on a cat just HAS to be a violation of SPCA rules as well. And a BUTT COVER? How Read More…
The Days of Entrepreneurship and The Razor
When I worked for Longs, store managers were trained to be entrepreneurs and to look for items that could be successful in our stores. We did have corporate buyers but they knew that they couldn’t see every vendor out there, and often there were local items that would do well in certain stores. If you Read More…
18 Fun Facts About Things at the Grocery Store
Some fun facts to brighten your day. I’ve heard of Larry The Cable Guy, but apparently there’s also Larry The Quaker Oats Guy. And I always thought that legally, shouldn’t Raisin Bran be called Bran With Raisin? Kind of like Broccoli Beef can’t be called Beef Broccoli because it’s mostly Broccoli, not beef? Next Read More…
The Top 10 Toy Crazes of All Time
Time Magazine assembled a list of the top 10 toy crazes of all time. I was working retail in 1982 when Cabbage Patch Dolls came out, and there was never a toy craze like it and never has been since, other than possibly the Razor Scooters. I remember seeing them at a toy show Read More…
The Walmart Closings Mystery Deepens
The drama about Walmart’s closure of 5 stores for mysterious “plumbing” reasons is growing every day. Maybe we should call it “Walmartgate.” Below is a video taken inside one of the closed stores, and you do have to wonder why there are so many empty shelves if they are reopening the stores in Read More…