The Mass. Ave. store near Bank Boston and C'est Bon has a pharmacy in the back of the store. In the store on JFK Street, past Urban Outfitters, that space is filled with greeting cards.

Customers walking into the Mass. Ave. store face the seasonal aisle, with a generous selection of sunblock, picnic ware, bug repellent and jelly sandals.

The path of entry at the JFK Street store takes customers directly into the candy and chips aisle.

The Mass. Ave. CVS provides bins containing four different kinds of umbrellas and two varieties of Twizzlers as they wait to check out. These bins, regular fixtures of the Mass. Ave. store, are absent at the other location.

But there is no grand marketing scheme behind all this. Turns out it's part accident and part convenience.

Ideally, says Todd Andrews, a corporate relations spokesperson for the company, stores are laid out like the Mass. Ave. branch, tempting customers with seasonal products as they enter.

Andrews says the JFK Street store's layout is probably due to its age. "With some of the older stores, we do get unusual configurations," he says.

He admits that the proximity of the two stores is "an unusual situation," but says it also makes sense because drugstores carry products people need at a moment's notice.

"When it comes to drugstores, people like them really close [to them]," he says.

Business at the JFK Street store, which Andrews estimates is one-half the size of the other store, totals to only one-third of the other store's business, according to Andrews.

Because the Mass. Ave. store is larger, it can support the pharmacy, Andrews says.

But for features like an expanded greeting card section, a photo developing counter and more convenience food items, customers will have to trek to the CVS down the road at 1013 Mass. Ave., toward Central Square.

"The larger the store, the more the variety," he explains.

The bins of umbrellas and Twizzlers, Andrews says, are the result of the decisions of individual store managers.

Like other Square store managers, they cater to their customers.

"The managers have a great deal of discretion," he says. `They know what moves in the store and they can highlight that."