With its latest string of initiatives designed to bring it out of a slump that lasted more than a decade, Rite Aid is aiming for “wellness” to do for it what the lower-case “i” did for Apple.
First, there was the wellness+ loyalty card program. Then, there was the wellness store format, with its team of Wellness Ambassadors. “This new format is all about empowering our customers in their pursuit of wellness,” president and CEO John Standley said in the company’s first quarter 2012 earnings call on June 23.