It makes sense for a store to place small impulse-buy items on the shelf next to related merchandise. Say, cereal and bananas. Beer and Ping-Pong balls. Cold medicine and tissues. Tampons and chocolate. Those choices all make sense, but this impulse buy found at a New England CVS left us, and tipster Jena, scratching our heads. [More]
drugstores
You Can Probably Find A Dollar Store Faster Than A Drugstore
By 12.9.11
Need something quick? You might be able to dash out and find a dollar store faster than you can spot a chain drugstore location. A new study says drugstores are being outpaced in numbers by the total amount of dollar stores in the U.S. [More]
CVS Doubles Down, Surpasses Rite Aid With 41" Receipt
By 3.29.11
A mere twenty-one inch long receipt? CVS isn’t about to sit back and let competitor Rite Aid soak up all of the ridicule from the Internet for comically long receipts. No way. The retailer brought its A game when reader Chris stopped by recently to pick up some things for his upset stomach, showering him with a 41-inch long receipt consisting mostly of coupons for junk food, cosmetics, and vitamins. [More]
Walgreens To Get Into The Grocery Game
By 1.13.11
For years, Walgreens has been the place where you could grab some milk, chips or soda while picking up a prescription but now the drugstore chain wants to be more than an afterthought in the fresh food market. [More]
Walgreens Launches Innovative Showroom Store, Where You Can Look But Not Buy
By 6.9.10
The thing about locking up all of your merchandise behind glass is your customers can’t actually buy it. Well, they can if you have employees who give a damn about helping a customer. This Walgreens in Brooklyn does not have those kind of employees. [More]
CVS Employee Strangles Shoplifter
By 5.10.10
A CVS employee in Chicago chased a 35-year-old shoplifter out of his store and held him in a chokehold for “several minutes” on Saturday morning until police came. The thief–who had stolen tubes of toothpaste–was taken to a hospital and initially described as in “fair-to-serious” condition, but then declared dead about 45 minutes later, reports the Chicago Sun-Times. The death is being ruled an accidental homicide, and the police aren’t going to press charges against the employee. [More]
Walgreens Takes Pity On You When You Get Mugged For Your Wallet And Prescriptions
By 4.8.10
Tabitha and her husband were part of a horrible chain of events. She was ill, and her husband was mugged on the way home from the pharmacy with her prescriptions. With his credit cards, cash, and his wife’s medicine all gone, her husband went back to the pharmacy…and received true above and beyond service. [More]
Watch Out For Drugstore Price Traps
By 4.7.10
I was at a Rite-Aid a couple of weeks back and went to pick up some cheap dish detergent, and the bottles that I remembered being less than $1.50 were all in the $3-4 range. I left and found sanely-priced soap at another store a few blocks away. Our reader Stan just wrote in with a similar example, where he caught his local CVS charging him three times as much as a nearby competitor. [More]
At Walgreens, Every Holiday Is Hanukkah!
By 4.7.10
Michael says his local Walgreens in Illinois can’t seem to unload its inventory of last year’s Hanukkah candy–so it just brings it back out with every other holiday. [More]
Walgreens Now Sells Televisions By The Inch
By 3.21.10
Rob took this picture of a 15″ LCD television for sale at Walgreens in Virginia. It’s nice that they chose to highlight the price, but confusing that they also posted the unit price. If you’re wondering, TVs cost $8 per inch. I like this pricing scheme, and hope to see other retailers adopt it. [More]
Pepsi With H1N1 Flavoring Now Available At Walgreens
By 2.5.10
First, there was Pepsi Vanilla. Then there was Pepsi Lime. Now, exclusively at Walgreens, you can get the latest special flavor of Pepsi: Pepsi H1N1. It is also available in frozen pizza, Buffalo wing, and ice cream form. [More]
Learn To Play The Drugstore Game From The Very Beginning
By 1.20.10
Are you curious about what dedicated bargain-hunters call the Drugstore Game, taking advantage of drugstores’ reward programs in order to acquire more toothbrushes and shampoo than your family could ever possibly use? What frugal person isn’t? Yet the forums where people discuss the tricks of this game can be intimidating, and it’s hard to know where to start. What if you’re not ready for major-league Drugstore Game? Is there maybe Drugstore Game T-Ball? Yes, there is! [More]
Walgreens Wants To Sell You Food Now
By 1.18.10
Walgreens told Bloomberg News that the company is looking into selling fresh food and prepared meals–things like salads, cut fruits, and sandwiches. From RetailWire: [More]
Greenbacks For Green Bags At CVS
By 10.17.09
Many stores offer discounts to customers who bring their own reusable bags to shop. Now, CVS is integrating their customer loyalty program with a green initiative, and plans to reward customers with 25 cents every time they use reusable bags.
Coupon Ninja Spends $5 For $91.97 Of Merchandise
By 10.8.09
Sure, not everyone has the time, inclination, or buying habits that make extreme coupon-shopping worthwhile. But everyone can benefit from learning some of the proud secrets of the coupon ninjas, such as coupon sources for products you probably already use, and combining sales, rebates, and coupons.
Why Store Receipts Keep Getting Longer and Longer
By 9.2.09
Ever run to the drug store for a tube of toothpaste and find that your meager purchase results in a receipt the length of War and Peace? Two-foot long receipts are increasingly common these days, as retailers embrace technologies allowing them to microtarget customers. The colossal waste of paper comes at a cost, not only in felled trees but on man hours spent on changing tape and fixing broken printers.
CVS Will Automatically Refill Your Prescription, Consent Be Damned
By 8.10.09
CVS pharmacies apparently don’t need consent to enroll customers in ReadyFill, a program that signs customers up for the maximum allowable number of prescription refills and then robocalls them when their drugs are ready. According to a veteran pharmacist, the automatic enrollments began after CVS’ corporate office set specific performance targets that would affect bonuses for managers and pharmacists. Inside, the pharmacist tells us what ReadyFill is, how it works, and how to escape those annoying robocalls…
Toothpaste Purchase Results In 3-foot Long Receipt
By 6.24.09
CVS asks: How about some dead trees and a bunch of ads with that purchase? Not in so many words, of course: that would actually give shoppers a choice.
