In this Issue


Since its nationwide launch in April 2010, Rite Aid’s wellness+ loyalty card program rapidly has proven itself to be a phenomenal boost to the chain’s business as the first-ever loyalty program designed to enhance customers’ savings and well-being together.



As Seen On TV products have gained valuable shelf space at drug chains, becoming a formidable department instead of just an item-driven business.


Its evolution is thanks to industry leaders Telebrands, Ontel, IdeaVillage (each individually owned by one of three Khubani brothers) and Allstar Products Group. Together they account for a significant portion of sales for the category whose customers are early adopters and seek new, innovative and value-driven products.



It’s like stepping into a time machine and jumping ahead a decade or more.
 Housed in a historic 1930s property that once was the tallest building in the world, Duane Reade’s newest flagship store at 40 Wall St. in New York — the first co-branded Duane Reade/Walgreens store — offers a glimpse of how retailers will use technology and develop new in-store services to create a much more interactive shopping experience.



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.



With more than half of women in the United States between the ages of 25 and 58 years battling some form of acne and the average age for acne patients on the rise, according to the American Academy of Dermatology, it is no surprise that sales of acne treatments have experienced an uptick at food, drug and mass. The sales trend is likely to continue as manufacturers continue to develop formulas to battle adult acne.


A phrase like “silent killer” sounds creepy enough on its own, but it’s an often-used one for a virus that, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, infects 1.3% to 1.9% of people in the United States.



One thing that was pretty clear in the research we conducted for the 2011 Retail Clinician Reader Survey is that an increasing number of retail-based health practitioners want the clinics they work for to expand the scope of services beyond acute care. Many readers said the one thing that would make them even more satisfied about the work they do is “moving beyond sick care,” as one reader noted, to more preventive/wellness-oriented services, including chronic disease management programs for diabetes, hypertension and more.


The 19th century British writer William Hickson may have written, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again,” but he only had half the story. By all means, try again, but don’t do the same thing over and over and expect different results.