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Beauty junkies in Canada have a new option when shopping for products. A new format recently unveiled by Katz Group Canada’s flagship Rexall drug store chain is aimed at making its stores “an innovative health destination.”


The Rexall Healthy Living Pharmacy format features a combined skin care and beauty care department. The goal: to focus on derm versus just cosmetics.


Drug retailers are doggedly pursuing the pet care category, with Rite Aid fetching its own piece of the $47.7 billion category, according to the 2009-2010 “National Pet Owners Survey” conducted by the American Pet Products Association.


After being hemmed in by recession, cash flow problems and costs, a venerable lion of West Coast food and drug retailing is roaring again. 


Armed with the positioning line, “It’s Time To Get Better,” Sav-Mor Drug Stores continues to emphasize the big difference between its network of franchised locations and the corporate mentality of the chain operations.


To that end, its most recent radio and television campaign positioned the pharmacies against the large national chains. The customer-
service-focused campaign established the Sav-Mor pharmacist as “your personal pharmacist” along with the idea that “nobody cares more for the customer than the owner.”


On top of its 101 in-store pharmacies, Schnucks last year opened four specialty pharmacies, offering specialized services to patients.


The pharmacies offer services for patients living with such chronic conditions as HIV, cancer, multiple sclerosis and autoimmune diseases, as well as for people recovering from organ transplants, said company spokesman Paul Simon. “It’s for patients who require special attention and hard-to-source medication,” he added.



Shopko’s story is sort of like a retailing version of “The Little Engine that Could.” Among mass merchandise retailers, it’s one of the smaller and less well-known chains, but that hasn’t stopped it from making its mark, particularly in new health-and-wellness and pharmacy initiatives.


Supervalu operates under the maxim that the pharmacy division exists as the “solution center for the sick and destination for the healthy.” In other words, Supervalu pharmacy endeavors to be that retail rarity: all things to all people. If it has something to do with health and wellness, treatments or prevention, Supervalu has an answer. 


Target is encouraging customers to direct their sights toward its in-store pharmacies with its “Ask Us” campaign. The campaign includes signage located throughout the store designed to direct shoppers to seek information from pharmacists about everything from allergies to generic discounts, promoting Target’s pharmacists as experts on medicines.


The signage includes floor graphics in the aisles leading to the pharmacy counter, signs hanging from ceilings and placards posted on endcaps. 


Duane Reade, which now is owned by Walgreens, is redefining the chain drug beauty shopping experience for New Yorkers as it continues to roll out its Look Boutique as part of its transformation.


The upscale staffed beauty department services all aspects of beauty, including brows with a Ramy-branded brow bar that offers in-store brow-shaping services. Available beauty brands include Becca, POP Beauty, Purminerals, ’Tini Beauty Lounge and Vera Moore.


The way chief executive R. David Yost sees it, AmerisourceBergen Corp.’s Good Neighbor Pharmacy program is a bulwark for independent pharmacists against the pressures of a brutally competitive pharmacy market and an unforgiving economy.


Comparison shopping across blood-glucose meters couldn’t be easier than at Walgreens. Pictured here at a store just outside of Baltimore, customers can hold and feel the individual monitors and review individual bullet points as part of this pull-box display. Located just outside the pharmacy waiting area, the display also is ideal for quick and easy pharmacist recommendations. 


Walgreens dove into the digital beauty space earlier this year with a new and interactive website aimed at providing beauty mavens with real solutions to real makeup, hair and fashion dilemmas.


Walgreens.com/BeautyWithin offers step-by-step advice from beauty pros on how to achieve skin, hair and makeup looks, as well as video episodes highlighting everyday women and their personal beauty challenges.