Tag Archives: CVS

Cases

Lint rollers in lockdown: Is California overreacting?

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During a visit to a CVS store in Redwood City, California, I encountered an unexpected barrier to purchasing something as simple as lint rollers. These inexpensive items were locked behind a glass cabinet, requiring me to press a button to unlock it.

The inconvenience of this process immediately raised questions about the rationale behind such measures. Why would store managers restrict access to low-value products, slowing down the shopping experience? This practice seems counterintuitive in a retail environment where seamless customer interaction leads to higher sales.

I speculate that theft prevention might be the motive. One said at Reddit about a year ago,

“We have people that, in broad daylight, will walk right in with backpacks and take everything off a shelf and shove it into their bag and leave. They don’t care if you see them, and they don’t care if they are on camera. CVS would literally not be in business anymore if we didn’t lock things up.”

However, locking up inexpensive items can do more harm than good—it frustrates shoppers and may result in lost sales, as potential buyers could abandon their purchases entirely. This calls for store management to reconsider its approach. After all, a hassle-free shopping experience remains a crucial factor in retail success.

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Reference

Bitter, A. and Reuter, D. (2024, August 11), Locked-up merchandise is turning off shoppers at CVS, Walgreens, and other big drugstores, Business Insider, https://www.businessinsider.com/locked-up-merchandise-drugstores-annoys-shoppers-cvs-walgreens-rite-aid-2024-8

  • Major drugstore chains have locked up a lot of merchandise to prevent shoplifting.
  • But the anti-theft strategy is pushing some customers to wonder: Why even shop here?
  • Locking up so many items undermines one of drugstores’ main reasons for existing: convenience.

Cases

Postcards without stamps: How retailers miss simple customer needs

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When I recently visited a CVS store in Long Beach, I stood in front of an impressive display of postcards. There were options for every occasion—anniversaries, Halloween, and even postcards designed to send money via Venmo. After choosing a card, I instinctively searched for postal stamps. To my surprise, the store did not sell them. This simple task of sending a postcard turned into a complex process. I had to go to Ralphs store, buy a book of 20 forever stamps for $14.60, and inquire how many were required for international shipping. This endeavor took over two hours. Even finding a post box was a challenge.

This experience echoes findings from Hwang et al. (2022) on goal-based bundling, where understanding consumer goals helps companies like Samsung develop product bundles that address customer needs holistically. If CVS applied a similar approach and emphasized with their shoppers deeply, bundling postcards with stamps could enhance consumer experience. Since the goal of buying a postcard is inherently linked to mailing it, offering both products together would eliminate unnecessary friction, saving time and improving convenience.

Building on this idea, not only retailers like CVS but also postcard makers like Hallmark could improve the postcard experience by launching postcards with pre-attached postal stamps. This would make it easier for customers, especially those who want send mail simply. By making mailing as easy as buying, manufacturers would help meet customer needs directly. This approach could also attract more people to send postcards, creating a new market focused on convenience and simplicity.

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Reference

Hwang, S., Park, H., Sohn, M., Yoo, D., Han, C., & Joo, J. (2022). Goal based bundling: A behaviorally informed strategy to combine multiple smart products. In G. Bruyns & H. Wei (Eds.), [ _ ] With Design: Reinventing Design Modes (pp. 2888–2901). Singapore: Springer.

Contemporary electronic manufacturers struggle with how to develop attractive bundles by combining their existing smart products. In the present work, we propose Goal Based Bundling (GBB) by drawing on the academic research of goal systems theory (Kruglanski et al., 2018) and shed light on two previously ignored aspects of bundling strategy: service and glue product. We applied our GBB to a collaborative project with Samsung Electronics, whose goal was to develop new product bundles for kids by combining multiple smart home products. We constructed a framework of Samsung Electronics’ smart products and then visualized it on its sales website. A UI design conveying the value of smart products bundle was developed based on GBB structure. We discuss the process and the result of our project to provide insights into the product managers who combine existing smart products to develop a bundle.