SLIDESHOW

CVS Health senior educator Kristene Diggins and others involved in the fight against diabetes said they expect drug stores and retail clinics to play a bigger role in coming years.

(To view the full Category Review, click here.)

Overall, the sale of all sleep remedies were up 6.1% to $707.9 million across total U.S. multi-outlets for the 52 weeks ended Nov. 27, 2016, according to IRI. Procter & Gamble’s ZzzQuil still leads the category. Sales of the liquid formulation are outpacing category growth with an uptick of 8.4% to $85.3 million, or 12% of total category sales.

(To view the full Cough-Cold Report, click here.)

Last year, Drug Store News projected that GSK Consumer Healthcare’s Flonase allergy franchise would be challenged with the introduction of two new nasal corticosteroids to the market — McNeil Consumer’s Rhinocort and Bayer’s ClariSpray.

(To view the full Cough-Cold Report, click here.)

A number of recent product offerings in the VMS space may represent white-space opportunities — or products that help create a marketing or merchandising niche that resonates with today’s consumer.

Rather than watch the nail category continue to evaporate, retailers and brands are bonding together with innovative launches and impactful in-store presentations.

(To view the full Beauty Trends Report, click here.)

For the 52-week period ended Oct. 30, nail color sales were down 11.4% across multi-outlets, according to IRI. That’s prompting action.

VR. AR. AI… Oh my.

There is no question how much technology is changing not only the way retailers and brands engage consumers during the pre, during and post phases of the shopping experience, and reshaping the path to purchase, but also how brands bring new innovation to the market and rethink how products are merchandised online and in store.

Below, DSN outlines the big trends, predictions and critical issues that will make the news in 2017 and beyond.

1. VR takes over

When a company has been around as long as Plymouth, Minn.-based Thrifty White Pharmacy — which traces its roots to the 1884 opening of White Drug in what was then the Dakota Territory — there is an expectation that to stick around, it has to adapt to changes in the industry to stay in business. But rather than be content following its competitors’ leads in an effort to simply keep the lights on, Thrifty White has been on the front lines of adapting early to the biggest changes impacting the pharmacy business.