Special Reports Archive

Like most retailers in California, combo-store pioneer Raley’s Supermarkets has been in a slow growth mode since the recession began in 2008. “We still have 105 pharmacies, so not a lot has changed in the past few years,” said John Segale, a spokesman for the Sacramento-based chain.


Walgreens, the kaleidoscopic company that wants to “own well,” is shuffling management and realigning operations as it works to knock down its remaining internal silos and create a seamless, broad-based retail health-and-
wellness dynamo.



Most Care Pharmacies are located within and around the nation’s capital, and that suggests Care represents the face of pharmacy for a lot of influential Beltway executives. 


“[That proximity] really is an opportunity for us to represent independent pharmacy,” said Michael Wysong, Care CEO, whose office resides in the same building as the National Community Pharmacists Association. “We [also] co-market a [quality assurance] manual with NCPA. That’s a perfect example where we’re working hand in hand.”


Health and wellness is a major focus for grocer Albertsons, and that also holds true for its youngest of customers. 


Enter Healthy Kidz Club. 


In retailing, it’s a given that a long-term, severe recession will cut through the ranks of food, drug and general merchandise retailers like a scythe through wheat, pushing weaker players out of the market as consumer spending dries up and Darwinian realities winnow the field. But it’s also true that the strongest merchants can emerge not only intact, but also with even brighter prospects if they innovate, invest and retain the loyalty of their customers.


The 59-year-old Save Mart supermarket chain more than doubled its store count in 2007 with the purchase of 132 Albertsons stores, but entered something of a dormant period since then. Save Mart now operates 241 stores in California and Nevada, down from a peak of 255 in 2009, and 114 in-store pharmacies, down from 115 in 2009.



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.



In the May issue of Consumer Reports, a report found that such independents as McKesson’s Health Mart franchise group are delivering the goods.


McKesson helped capitalize on what has always been an exemplary Health Mart patient experience at the top of last year with a multi-
million-dollar ad campaign that included an ad during the New Orleans Saints/Indianapolis Colts Super Bowl. That 2010 campaign featured real Health Mart pharmacists with stories on how they have impacted their local communities by taking the time to care and provide special services.