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Another key area, in which the learnings of ExtraCare are helping to inform the overall CVS Caremark retail strategy and personalize the shopping experience is in the way CVS Caremark designs and merchandises its stores.

Fifteen years worth of ExtraCare learnings also have dramatically influenced the way CVS Caremark markets and merchandises to its best customers. These learnings have informed a critical part of its overall retail strategy, SVP merchandising Judy Sansone told DSN — conversion.

As the company completes its 50th year in business and the country awaits a period of change in health care unlike anything seen in at least that time, CVS Caremark executives are quite confident that its unique hybrid structure and its ability to leverage the three core parts of its business — either individually or together, in varying combinations to serve a multitude of needs — aligns more effectively with the long-term trends in health care and puts the company in a unique position at a singular moment in history.

It’s been a busy month for news about CVS Caremark, as DSN raced to compile the special report on the company that appears in this issue. Each of the announcements only serves to amplify our “Power of One” theme.

Take its new joint venture with Cardinal Health, which will negotiate prices and source generic drugs for both companies.

CARLISLE, Pa. – Ahold USA division Giant Food Stores has donated nearly $650,000 to local charities, the supermarket banner said.

Giant, based in Carlisle, Pa., and also known as Giant-Carlisle to distinguish itself from another Ahold banner, Giant Food of Landover, Md., said customers at Giant Food Stores and Martin's Food Markets — part of the same banner — donated $640,194 to local Children's Miracle Network hospitals in their communities as part of a donation campaign that took place between Nov. 24 and Dec. 7.

MINNEAPOLIS — The chief executive of Target is reaching out to consumers in the wake of the widespread hacking of credit and debit card data at Target stores that the company confirmed last week.

In a statement on the mass-merchandise retailer's website, president, chairman and CEO Gregg Steinhafel sought to ameliorate customers' worries about the possibility that their cards were compromised. He emphasized that the issue had been "identified and eliminated," while the retailer extended a 10% discount to customers who shopped at its stores on Saturday and Sunday.

Top CVS Caremark executives gathered in New York City on Wednesday for its 2013 Analyst Day to outline the company’s strategies to drive long-term enterprise growth through its vast pool of assets and its nimbleness in responding to the evolving healthcare landscape.

Walgreens posted a first-quarter sales increase of 5.9% to a record $18.3 billion. Front-end comparable store sales for the quarter increased 2.4% in the first quarter, customer traffic in comparable stores increased 0.2% and basket size increased 2.2%, while total sales in comparable stores increased 5.4%. Prescription sales, which accounted for 64.7% of sales in the quarter ended Nov. 30, increased 7.3%, while prescription sales in comparable stores increased 7.2%.