“CVS Health...you know how many
permutations they tried, blew money on, before the settled on that
name? Three. Three times they came up with new corporate logos, had
signs made and then changed their minds.”
“Are they idiots?” I ask.
“Nope, they have that much money.
The US market for CVS pharmacies is so glutted they've moved onto
Europe and Brazil now.” He claims. They're doing that well.
He, Keith, tells me he does their
security. All the scanners at the door to catch shoplifters with
items carrying those anti theft devices, all cameras, police and fire
detectors/systems. Background checks on all employees, internal
audits of money flow, embezzlement discovery and all those things
that make CVS lose money.
He goes on to tell me how CVS was
willing to lose $550,000 a year on a particular security problem.
“Balloons...you know, kid's
balloons...you've seen them in CVS right? Well, the local managers
love displaying them around the store. During holidays, on
promotional items and forget Valentines day! You know what the
problem is with balloons and security? He asks.
I have no idea and he says: “Balloons
move in air currents. They move to the ac/heating...and set off every
infra-red motion detector I have put in every store!”
“This means that the local cops show
up, investigate and find nothing. After three times responding to
false alarms they start fining us for this. Imagine every CVS in this
country that has balloon displays getting whacked several times a
year with local police fines. It adds up!”
He goes on to say he tells corporate in
Woonsocket this and develops a plan to prevent false balloon calls.
He wanted to get on the manager's asses to coral all those balloons
at night somehow or entirely remove them from the stores. Don't ever
sell another balloon again.
“We'll do a cost/benefit analysis on
this.” says corporate.
“Three weeks later I get an email,
from the top, telling me to drop the idea completely of doing
anything to any balloon, but they offer NO reason why, so I bug them
with emails to tell me why.”
He comes to find out that the
cost/benefit analysis of this problem lands on the side of losing
$550,000 a year for this reason alone. CVS still made $2.1 million
dollars on balloon sales alone in 2013.
Keith goes on: “Can you believe that?
CVS, the entire chain, makes over two million on balloon sales alone?
And guess where half of that money is made? Right before Valentines
Day. You've seen the candy section right? All those heart shaped
candy boxes? And floating above that, are red balloons saying 'I Wuv
Yoo.'”
I ask why they were willing to lose
half a million when with a few changes, they could recoup that?
Keith says they're soo damn busy opening stores up all over Brazil
now, that they don't want to be bothered and they're still ahead of
the game on one silly item alone, balloons.
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