Department stores are inconvenient
August 05, 2004
So, I'm not exactly feeling the best today. I have an over-runny nose, cough and a scratchy throat. Eating has been a challenge lately.
This morning I went to Wal*mart on my way into work to get some medicine and tissues for the day at work. I probably wouldn't have made the venture to work had I not had 3 meetings scheduled for today, but I digress. At Wal*mart, I quickly go to the Pharmacy area. The pharmacy aisle is full of vitamins, headache medicine and condoms. Where on earth is the cold medicine? I look in the adjacent aisles and see first aid suppies in one aisle and dental care products in the other.
I got a little frustrated being that I was in jeopardy of being late for work. I asked an associate to point them out to me. Turns out they were in the middle of the first aid aisle. Good found them. Now, if you were in marketing and you wanted to keep the reputation for being the in and out in a flash store, you would probably put things that are commonly used together close by. For instance, pens and paper are often found in the same area. Dog collars and dog food are often only an aisle apart. But cold medicine (which is for runny noses) and tissues (which is for runny noses) are no where near each other. Tissues are clear on the other side of the store near the picture frames and light bulbs ... (i guess they are on the same shelves as the paper plates and napkins too).
Any good marketing person would tell you that they probably do this so you have to spend more time in the store. Wal*mart is a department store, not a convenient store.
Wal*mart is not only a big store, but is making its stores bigger so it is the one-stop shop for all your needs. Would you rather have 1 store with everything in it that takes hours to walk the entire store, or small specialized convenience stores that are easy to get around and are a minute in and a minute out.
Perhaps we should start refering to stores as either a convenient store or an inconvenient stores.
Posted by Brian McCollum at August 5, 2004 12:44 PM
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Comments
Interesting post, Brian. One of my favorite Far Side comics shows the inside of a small store with a customer looking at the shelves of goods that are all way out of reach near the ceiling. The caption is "Inconvenience Store".
Posted by: rosemary at August 6, 2004 09:48 AM
This is not the first time Wal*mart has been used in an anology of inconvienence. In the Setonian, Mike Rubino uses Wal*mart's parking lot as the inconvienent place for SHU students to park their cars and wait for the shuttle.
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/Setonian/002838.html
http://blogs.setonhill.edu/MikeRubino/
Posted by: Brian at August 6, 2004 01:21 PM
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