by Stephen Lindsley

Scrubs & Beyond is a St. Louis-based company that continues to find innovative ways to market a unique product. Founded in 2000 by Karla Bakersmith, the company has grown rapidly and now includes 23 retail locations in 15 states. They have truly made shopping for scrubs a fun experience.

Recently, Scrubs & Beyond found a new way to make its products more visible and accessible to the healthcare community — the new Mobile Scrub Unit. The unit serves as a traveling store on wheels, setting up shop anywhere in the surrounding area where people want to buy scrubs. This allows employees to save time and money by shopping right outside their workplace during breaks or lunch periods. The unit itself includes a full line of scrubs and accessories, a shoe department, a dressing room and a checkout counter, just like a traditional store. And because the store is mobile, it can pull up right in front of hospitals, doctors’ or dentists’ offices, nursing homes – anywhere that has scrubs-clad employees. The unit is fully self-contained with its own generator, requiring nothing from the facility except a parking place.

Scrubs & Beyond has made this program even more unique by returning a portion of the sales directly to the medical facility. A visit from the Mobile Scrub Unit can be a fund-raising opportunity and an employee benefit at the same time. Bakersmith sees the potential for the Mobile Scrub Unit to reach areas and markets that were inaccessible before. “We have already taken the Mobile Scrub Unit to hospitals and other facilities in Missouri where employees may not have a convenient place to buy scrubs.”

In addition, a payroll deduction program can be included, which makes purchasing scrubs and accessories even easier for employees, offering them an added benefit and making them eligible for discounts on everything they purchase.

While its primary customers continue to be medical professionals, scrubs have become more popular among the general public, and the styles available reflect scrubs’ broad appeal. You may have seen a medical office worker or dental professional wearing scrubs with a fun print, perhaps even Sponge Bob Square Pants, Scooby Doo or a Disney character. Now scrubs are also available in comfortable denim material as well. More and more, though, scrubs are seen on high school students, in college dorms and in malls and restaurants. Comfortable, sensible clothes seem to always be in style.

Scrubs & Beyond is also dedicated to giving back to the core medical customer, and one approach is to sponsor a fun night out. In January, the company had its second annual Scrubs & Beyond Medical Industry Night at a St. Louis Blues hockey game, awarding 50 limited-edition scrubs sets with St. Louis Blues insignia to sweepstakes winners and offering discounted tickets for sale.

This season the company is sponsoring the “Scrubs Under the Stars!” promotion along with the St. Louis Cardinals. This promotion is designed to kick off the new St. Louis Cardinals scrubs that are available for sale exclusively at Scrubs & Beyond. Twenty-five lucky sweepstakes winners and their friends will have the unique opportunity to sit on the field in Busch Stadium and watch a Cards/Cubs game broadcast live from Chicago on the Diamond Vision big screen television. In addition, winners will receive VIP tours of the stadium, including the Cardinals’ locker room, an official St. Louis Cardinals scrubs set, complementary food and beverages, and a visit from Fredbird. The exciting part, though, is the chance to attend a private party at the stadium.

Scrubs & Beyond’s innovation also includes its Web site, which was launched in 2002. The site was designed in-house, and also helps promote the company’s comprehensive print catalog.

What, you might wonder, is the “Beyond” part of Scrubs & Beyond? Accessories, of course. Certainly shoes are an important consideration for medical professionals, and Scrubs & Beyond has a wide range of styles to choose from. But the company also offers other items you might not think of, such as brightly colored stethoscopes and blood pressure gauges with patterned cuffs. In addition, Bakersmith has received a patent on a unique gumball dispenser in the form of an IV bag. This has become a popular item for medical offices, where just the sight of the brightly colored gumballs among all the medical equipment can help make young patients feel more comfortable.

It was not that long ago that medical professionals had very little choice in their work attire. Bland green or blue scrubs were the extent of the options available. But now, with a broad range of styles and patterns to choose from, even the general public is beginning to see the benefit of adding scrubs to their wardrobes. By constantly finding new and innovative ways to market and sell a product that was once an afterthought, Scrubs & Beyond has put excitement into buying scrubs.

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