INSIGHTS AND PERSPECTIVES

NEW YORK Findings from market research firm The NPD Group that U.S. prestige beauty sales took a beating during the first half of 2009 may not be the most upbeat news, but it does make you wonder where those dollars are instead being spent. Well, a separate NPD report suggested that drug and mass might be the answer.

As the article stated, U.S. prestige beauty sales dropped 7% during the first half of the year, and June marked the 11th consecutive month of negative prestige beauty performance. Even prestige skin care suffered a loss, with sales dropping 6%.

NEW YORK Bottom line: The CDC report means one of two things. The 2009-2010 flu season has kicked off to a roaring start as early as late August/early September — it usually doesn’t pick up until mid-October. Or that the 2008-2009 flu season never really ended.

NEW YORK The health information technology revolution is sweeping beyond urban centers and into the heartland.

Newest case in point: Harris Teeter, whose tagline is “Your Neighborhood Food Market,” and whose reach is deep in the South and Mid-Atlantic regions. The 188-store chain has adopted sophisticated electronic health record technology in 118 in-store pharmacies, giving both its customer-patients and its pharmacists a real-time, easily accessed information platform with which to make more informed health decisions.

NEW YORK Over-the-counter medicines save healthcare dollars. It’s certainly a value that consumers are taking advantage of in light of the current recession. According to this report, as well as others — i.e., the Kaiser Family Foundation polls — Americans are cost shifting from more expensive and more time-consuming (having to take time off of work to see a doctor) prescription therapies to OTC medicines.

The news that Walgreens has reached an agreement with Caterpillar to help the company curb healthcare costs for its 70,000 employees, retirees and eligible dependents is one more indicator that the private sector cannot wait for healthcare reform and that pharmacy retailers are taking a greater role on the front lines of health care.

As explained in the article, Walgreens, through its Pharmacy Management Excellence program, will make transparent the prescription drug-pricing model, in turn, eliminating unnecessary and hidden costs for Caterpillar.

NEW YORK Times, they are a’changing. Already, marketing and merchandising paradigms had been evolving or redefined on a constant basis over the past decade — baby boomers, Gen-Xers, Gen-Yers, tweens, (remember metrosexuals?), e-shoppers, etc.