You seriously think they come with a cup, for 88 cents?
BTW, pregnancy tests are one of the most stolen items at places like Walmart, so you get flagged for walking out with one, even if it’s paid for, as I found out. This has caused people to resort to using them inside the bathroom at the store. I’ve seen them on the floor, more than once. OK, just twice, but I know someone else who has had that experience. It made me really sad.
Eighty Eight cents?
Hail Hydra!
No, because ours didn’t come with cups either.
Maybe it is because if one store carries them, they all have to carry them. If CVS, dollar tree, walmart, walgreens, etc. are all carrying these products then any store that doesn’t isn’t competitive. But again, if the profit margin on a LNK bottle of muscle rub is $0.10 (I assume walmart has to make a profit even at $0.88, otherwise they wouldn’t sell it) and the ingredients are the same as the $2-3 store brand for the same size, then shouldn’t the profit margin on a tube of store brand be $1-2? That means the store would have to sell 10-20 bottles of the LNK stuff to make the profits from one bottle of store brand (CVS, walmart, etc) stuff.
I notice some walmarts stock them differently. Some put them in a large bin near the checkout isles like DVDs, so you have to search through it to find what you want. Some put them next to the corresponding item (muscle rub with the other muscle rubs, antifungal with the other antifungals) and some put all the $0.88 items together in their own shelf. I wonder if walmart is trying to discourage people from buying this item with the first and third method of storage.
I believe the WalMart my mom and I normally go to puts these $.88 items on a shelf in the “X items or less lane” (where they sell the cigarettes).
Impulse buy!
This store is located about midtown. We are in the Central Midwest.
So far I have tried the antacid tablets, triple-antibiotic gel, and cortisone cream. They seem to work fine. I would be slightly leery of a $.88 pregnancy test…
I don’t recall the $.88 items being anywhere near the higher-priced options in the pharmacy, at least at this store.
The profit margin on store brands is pretty large usually. The profit margin on the 88 cent stuff is often as large, but obviously less is made per unit. Your estimations are pretty accurate, though the ratio is more in the range of 2:1 to 5:1. Better to snag that minimal profit than have it go to a dollar store, I suppose. They’re also positioned as impulse buys, where someone will buy one or two of them when they hadn’t planned to buy any meds at all. At the price, they’re practically disposable; someone shopping with a headache will buy a bottle just to take a couple, and then promptly lose the rest without much care.
WMs are supposed to try to stock the products in three places: the dump bin (which is supposed to be in all stores at all times, and higher-ups do check for compliance) for impulse buys near the cash registers, a dedicated 88 cent modular for stock-up buying (often a permanent end cap or a sidecounter) that may not be in smaller stores that can’t shoehorn the thing in without losing space for other items, and approximately 66% of the items are also shelved in their respective categories’ modulars for bargain hunters. The modular planners seem to ghettoize the placement of the products in this last part, and the items are rarely close to the products they mimic, but instead on the bottom few shelves away from the main brands. This is to try to pull extra profit from destination shoppers; someone who’s sick enough to make a specific trip to look for a cold medication is willing to pay more money to treat it right then, and they’re not going to think to look beyond the obvious “cold medication” set on the modular.
It’s probably not a loss leader, because it’s not explicitly being sold with the intention of drawing customers in so they’ll buy other stuff. Nobody goes to the drugstore with the intent of buying an 88 cent tube of triple antibiotic, you know. Loss leaders are things that they advertise heavily- “2 bags Lay’s Potato Chips - $2 dollars for the 4th of July!” or something along those lines so that people looking to buy potato chips will see them in the circular, go to the store for the good deal, and then pick up their hot dogs, buns and beer while they’re there. They lose money with the chips, but make money overall with the other stuff.
More likely they’re there as a competitor to dollar stores for price-sensitive customers. You can guarantee that they make money on them even at 88 cents.
There’s likely also a BIG difference in size- for example, Equate triple antibiotic is some obnoxious size like 1.5 oz of ointment, while the 88 cent version (Dr. Sheffield?) is like 1/2 oz. I’d bet the value is still better on the Equate one for $1.47 or whatever. The aspirin is probably a bottle of 40 vs a bottle of 150 or something along those lines.
Oh… apparently the absolute best deal going is on the cheapo pregnancy tests- they’re just as accurate, and not so astronomically expensive. The suggestion is to use those until you get a positive, and then confirm it with a more expensive one. (wife and I have gone through the trying-to-get pregnant dance several times now, with a couple of successes).
As far as size, there really isn’t that big a difference. That is part of what made me curious about it. A 1oz tube of anti itch cream or antifungal is $0.88, but a 1oz tube of equate brand is $3 and a 1oz tube of name brand is $5. It is all the same ingredient at the same concentration.
It’s got to be a market position thing then. It’s not a loss leader, because it’s not being used to drag other customers in with the hope that they buy other stuff.
More likely, it’s aimed at capturing that segment of the market that would buy their food at Wal-Mart, but their triple antibiotic and ibuprofen at the dollar store, by offering them a comparable value at Wal-Mart.
The takeaway for the rest of us is just how huge the markup is on those things- if they can still sell them for 88 cents a piece and make money, they’re just making even more on the other higher priced items, especially if there’s no difference in formulation.
It may also keep a lot of people from buying a single dose of something for .75 at a convenience store. Once people know they can get 12 doses of something, or a whole tube of antibiotic ointment at Walmart for .88, if they have a sudden need while they are out-- headache, cut themselves on a hike-- the sort of thing where they would stop at the very first place they came to, and buy the single dose (yes, convenience stores sell tiny packets of antibiotic ointment), if they know Walmart is just five more minutes away, and for a few cents more, they can get more than a single dose, they might go all the way to Walmart.
They may sort of get the feeling Walmart “helped” them in cases like that, and feel more kindly disposed toward it, as well.