A floor decal told me I needed it!

It has to be the local grocers dream to see an army of men come walking through the front door. In fact, when I walk through those automatic sliding doors they don't make that pleasant swooosh sound anymore. Instead, what I hear is the distinct CHA-CHING tone announcing my arrival to management. This is the signal to roll out the entire stock of non-sensical inventory to the sales floor that typically collects dust. They know that guys like me enter their lair without packing the needed weaponry of a shopping list. This provides the image of a small child being presented all the colorful choices of sugary goodness in the cookie of cereal aisle and "needing" all of them.

I offer this self deprivating image of myself as an attempt for pity regarding the result of my recent encounter with the latest tool of marketing. This unavoidable menace calls out to guys like me in a tone unheard by sensible female shoppers. I know this because as I stood there in the cracker aisle it spoke to me, at which time I slowly leaned over to the grandmother type woman holding the store brand version of Ritz and whispered in hear ear, "did you hear it". After removing the jumbo Cheese Wiz can from my forehead, it dawned on me that she did not hear what I did. I could have sworn it was audible to all. It was as loud and clear as could be. "You need all 6 flavors of NEW Triscuit Whole Grain Crackers", come on I can't be the only one that this floor decal is speaking to!

The marketing folks know one simple principal of selling their products, literally force people to make a decision to buy or not to buy. Short of placing a pair of glasses on our faces upon entry that show a miniature commercial every 5 seconds, placing decals and signage in our every path gets the job done. Likewise, the retailers know that the vendors want this space and even provide higher placement costs depending on the particular floor space (location, location, location). They know the shopping habits of every person coming through the door, in averages of course. How is this you ask? Point Of Sale systems (POS) and their ability to report activity right down to which product in which category flies through the registers the most. This, and a mountain of other data, can tell Mr. Retailer and Mr. Vendor where they want to market their products and most profitable items.

There are two lessons to be learned here. One is that of our need to keep pleasant and useful services / products in the typical travel patterns of the hospital staff. Remember they are the real key to successful hospital retail. in addition, we need effective reporting from our POS systems to make absolute effective use of limited retailing space. We do not have the luxury of a 100,000 square foot store. We may only have 1,000 square feet to serve our customers, so we need to make better choices. Our systems will tell us what isn't working and those that are, all in a much quicker time frame to avoid losses. Not to mention that we will know what product that is delivered to the store actually makes its way through the register, and that which has exited "free of charge".

We need to use the lessons of the much larger retailers of main street to make our healthcare spaces efficient and profitable to achieve fiscal responsibility to the mission we are trying to serve. I cannot explain why it is so easy for me to understand the needs related to cost effective operations of the potentially complicated venues for retail in the healthcare community, yet I'm wondering how I will explain to my wife why we have 6 boxes of Triscuits stuffed in the pantry...........and one slightly damaged can of Jumbo Cheese Wiz.