In search of an all-night drug store - Marketing in College Towns

In search of an all-night drug store

COLUMBIA, MO. - It's 10 p.m. on a frigid winter Sunday at Mizzou. I'm hungry, and leftover pizza looks unappetizing. I open my refrigerator: no soda, orange juice or bottled water. I check the shelves: no peanut butter, soup or junk food.

As I look around the room, I notice my toiletries are in pitifully low supply. What is more frightening to a woman college student than running out of food? Running out of soap, shampoo, and of course, hair spray!

My friends show up, car at the ready. Need I say more?

We put up our hair, throw on sweats, and bundle up to face the sub-zero weather. Radio blaring, the five of us, squished like sardines, are off to the local chain drug store. It is only five minutes from campus and open 24 hours. It seems that the stores open 24 hours are always the ones that everyone tries first.

We pile out, get a shopping basket, and we're ready to do some heavy shopping.

Like many stores in Columbia, this one, an Osco, caters to the college student. We head straight for the aisle with abundant snacks and candy, then it's off to the cosmetics aisle.

Set apart from the rest of the store, the cosmetic section is about five aisles long, including two devoted to every kind of conditioner and shampoo. Each of us picks up a different brand of shampoo or hair styling product. Multiply that by approximately 20,000 Mizzou students, 3,000 Stephens College students, and 2,000 Columbia College students... well, that's a lot of brands. Next stop, soda!

Part of the back wall is devoted to soda. Cans, bottles, plastic liters, and every kind of soda one can imagine. I always look for selection. If a store doesn't have a good selection of any product, word travels fast. We pick up a couple of 12-packs.

One may think since college students are traditionally poor, we buy only no name or generic products. Not so. We are hung up on brand names, and variety.

As we make our way to the other side of the store, there are aisles stocked with small appliances-microwaves, and even refrigerators for dorms.

Then there are the drug products, including a full service prescription department. Because most of us don't have cars, when we do ride to the drug store, we tend to stock up: the selection and prices are better.

College students tend to buy on the "just in case" theory. I always buy cold medicine during the winter, just in case. A few weeks before finals, we'll find the Pepto-Bismol and Tums missing from the shelves, not to mention the NoDoz and Vivarin for those "all-nighters." We'll buy whatever brand is left, just in case.

At the check out, we each write our checks carefully, giving all the information required by the store, and wonder how I'll carry four full sacks.

We pile into the car and laugh all the way back to the dorm. We're satisfied now, having visited the type of retailer we prefer: a one-stop shopping store.

Jodi B. Cohen is a sophomore at the University of Missouri, Columbia, majoring in journalism.

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