Shopping List: Can You Do Your Grocery Shopping at the Drugstore?
Jan. 24, 2011 — -- The next time you need groceries, you might not need to shop at a grocery store.
CVS and Walgreens are both getting into the grocery game in a big way, in order to cater to customers' needs as well as their wants.
Studies show people shop for drugstore items only about once a month, but they shop for food two or more times per week.
Drugstores are hoping that when you come in for milk and eggs, you'll also pick up some greeting cards or DVDs."Good Morning America" recently found people surveying a selection of oranges, bananas, apples, potatoes, onions and peppers.
"Corn flakes ... where are the corn flakes?" asked one customer.
Click HERE to learn more about drugstore rewards and rebate programs.
There was meat, eggs and even sushi.
But this wasn't a local grocery store. This was Walgreen's.
"We wanted to develop a daily healthy and living solutions store," Mark Wagner, president of operations and community management for Walgreen's, told "GMA."
It's working. Drug stores that have added more food are attracting more customers and making more money.
"It's been very successful when you look at it from a financial aspect, but it's been even more successful when you look at it from a community aspect," Wagner added.
Walgreens deliberately added groceries to stores, such as one on the South Side of Chicago, that are in so-called "food deserts" -- urban areas with no grocery stores.
"They have things that, you know -- variety for the family -- that's what we're looking for," one shopper said.
So it's good for the stores, but it is good for the customers?
"Some of my best grocery store deals have come from drugstores," said Chrissy Pate, co-founder of BeCentsAble.net, a forum for the best grocery deals around the country.
"The drugstores offer lots of store incentives and that's what makes them different than the grocery stores and big box chains -- you're going to find lots of store coupons, lots of rebate programs and lots of store credit," she said. "And that's how you can really get some rock-bottom prices."
