• by Sarah Mahoney  @mahoney_sarah, August 24, 2010

While consumers have gotten used to candy corn and Halloween costumes appearing on store shelves in August, one sign of autumn is appearing much earlier than usual: Retail chains, including Publix, CVS, Rite Aid and Walgreens, are announcing flu shot programs now, instead of waiting for October.

While stores have little to say about the availability and suggested timing of flu vaccines--the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention does that--"if earlier flu shots turn out to be the rule rather than the exception, that can be hugely beneficial for retailers," Tom Charland, CEO of Merchant Medicine, a retail clinic consultancy, tells Marketing Daily.

That's because the rise of retailers as healthcare providers--something that on the surface sounds smarter than Starbucks, especially to the stressed-out working parents they serve--have been hampered by seasonality. To make money, clinics need to see at least two people an hour, he says. So despite the business model's potential, and ambitious plans from chains like Wal-Mart and Target, there are still only some 1,200 of these types of clinics in the U.S., as retailers shut them down almost as fast as they open new ones.