Special Reports Archive

Regional operator Giant Eagle always has pushed the envelope with new store concepts, as evidenced by its high-end Market District grocery brand and Giant Eagle Express, a convenience store/gas station replete with a wide offering of food items and a full-service, drive-through pharmacy.



Talk about a bold retail vision. Walgreens president and CEO Greg Wasson said the nation’s top pharmacy retailer wants nothing less than to “own well.”

Walgreens is ready for its closeup.


After a two-year, top-to-bottom makeover — and a relentless focus on its core customers and its broad mission as a health, wellness and convenient shopping destination — the company that wants to “own well” has honed its message to consumers: Walgreens is ready to be the nation’s top wellness destination.

Generic drug usage already has been on the rise year after year, with no sign of slowing down. As Jody Fisher, VP marketing for healthcare analytics at market research firm SDI, has told Drug Store News, generics accounted for more than 70% of products dispensed at retail pharmacies and are set to increase further this year.




As the costs of primary care march steadily higher and patients endure ever-longer wait times to see a family physician, the need for accessible, cost-effective patient care alternatives has become both obvious and urgent. 


Enter Walgreens. Armed with new, time-saving 
pharmacy automation tools, a growing offsite-dispensing capability and an array of new adherence and disease-management services, the company heavily is promoting its pharmacists and in-store clinicians as the most cost-effective front-line resource for community-based patient care.


There’s a reason Walgreens’ leaders are pushing so hard to upgrade communications capabilities and reach consumers through every channel, from stores and drive-through pharmacies to social media and smart phones. “Multichannel shoppers are three times more valuable to a retailer than a single-channel shopper,” president and CEO Greg Wasson said in January.


Though efforts to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act via the court system remain under way — with recent victories for opponents in Virginia and Florida — the attempt to repeal the healthcare-reform bill in Congress failed, thus leaving the bill and, most importantly, the regulatory approval pathway for follow-on biologics intact.


The CCR foundation has been laid. Now comes the next phase in Walgreens’ campaign to “enhance the customer experience.”


Customer Centric Retailing is rolling across the chain’s coast-to-coast store network like a tide. The effort — aimed at aligning Walgreens’ mix with what its customers really want from the stores; eliminating hundreds of redundant, slow-turning SKUs; and boosting front-end productivity — already has transformed more than 2,100 Walgreens stores. Another 3,400 are up for renovation by the end of this year.