Convenient Stores: Aren’t they supposed to be, well, convenient?
When I am in a pinch and need some key essentials, dropping into a Walgreens or CVS is usually what comes to mind. A few weeks ago, I was asked to observe the movement of traffic, shopper’s interaction with the store and overall experience of the checkout process. Luckily, I had a killer headache and needed some Advil.
With my headache getting worse, and my bus departure fast approaching I wanted to get in and get out FAST. Spoiler: I didn’t get out fast and I missed my bus. First, the CVS I chose was rather small, a lot smaller than most. You would think that would make finding items a lot easier; nope. Since I was trying to find Advil, I thought great, I’ll head to the pharmacy aisle. Well come to my surprise it took me a few tries. Right by the pharmacy was cold medicine, bandages/first aid, vitamins, and feminine products. I went up and down the aisle searching for pain meds, and no such luck. Then I went over to the next aisle with toothpaste, and sure enough it was at the other end. Toothpaste, I thought? Clearly their organization had some thought to it, right? Well it was totally beyond me.
Once I had Advil in hand I proceeded to the front to pay. As I weaved in and out of aisles trying to avoid people, I realized, most the shoppers weren’t browsing around. They all had and idea of what they wanted and did what I did, and went to the aisles they assumed it would be in. Their outcomes varied, either they found what they were looking for, or they kept looking, and if they didn’t have good luck, eventually they hunted down someone who would know. I was VERY close to doing that myself.
Everyone I took note of was in a hurry. They only had a few items in hand when they proceeded to checkout. Now for checkout… I’ve only seen this in CVS’s but the way they are laid out is like this: Self Service Checkout on one side and a cashier on the other.
Now, there are no indications or directions of which you should choose, it’s basically a free for all, and you go to whichever is free first. The line formed at the end of a random aisle, and again there was no rhyme or reason to it. People would line up behind a person who thought this is the most convenient place to stand (in between the self checkout area which had 3 stations open and one cashier). I stood behind a man with a basket filled with toiletries and a bottle of water, impatiently tapping his foot and sighing. He was looking back and forth to see which would free up first.
Once he was able to walk up to the self checkout machine, I followed soon after. Since I only had Advil, I promptly pressed the english button and swiped my item. *Conck!* An alert came up saying, I was purchasing something that needed an age verification and a store associate would come shortly. I noticed my station number lit up and a light started flashing. The cashier on the other side of me noticed, but of course she was helping people and couldn’t attend to my machine. Literally 2 mins go by, and she finally calls someone to come up and help. A total of 5 mins later, I had someone come up, press a button and swipe a key card. I was finally free to pay.
Remitting payment was easy, I chose the Credit/Debit option and followed the prompts. Of course the part where they take my money is the easiest… So, what should’ve been a fast 5 min stop turned into 25–30mins.
If I were in charge of making sure things run smoothly I would start off by making sure the aisles are not as random, and that the signs were more visible. Oh! I forgot to mention, the way the aisle descriptions worked was one half had the description and aisle number in the front, and the back half had the aisle number and descriptions in the back. So the same aisle had two separate description, which is why, I didn’t see Pain Relievers displayed at first, it wasn’t on the closest guide to me. Then I would definitely make a designated area for a line to form, maybe even separate people who want to use the self checkout vs the cashier. Finally, I would make sure customers had a way to know which items needed “approval” for purchasing, that way they won’t be stuck at self checkout for buying Advil. If they knew that Advil was treated like cold medicine or alcohol, the could choose to wait in line for a cashier to check them out.
Hopefully CVS and other convenient stores like it can streamline the process and be better organized. Maybe if they do that, they can truly be convenient stores.
