CVS Observations

While observing my local Reston, Virginia CVS, I noticed a few common trends that were followed by most customers throughout their shopping experience. Upon entering the store, customers generally took one of two routes to find their desired purchases. They either went directly from the front door through the first (cosmetic) aisle and took a left to access the middle horizontal passageway or took an immediate left upon entering and then used a middle vertical aisle to access the interior of the store. I also noticed that most shoppers declined to use the store provided shopping carts, and either hand carried their items or placed them into the provided baskets. Lastly, when purchasing and exiting the store, the overwhelming majority of customers queued to access the self-checkout machines, with the noted exception of older clientele and those who chose to utilize the shopping carts.

These observations lead me to believe that focusing attention on optimizing traffic flow for both the customers and company’s benefit, and streamlining the self-checkout experience would add value to the experience for both parties.