Top Retailers

Higi ‘scores’ with kiosks

Through its biometric screening kiosks, its smartphone application and its website, Higi encourages users to take a more holistic approach to their health. True wellness, its creators insist, springs not just from such physical metrics as blood pressure, glucose readings and body mass index, but from lifestyle choices and connections to family, friends, neighbors and coworkers.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - Walmart announced the introduction of Great Value Naturals, a new line of all-natural cleaning products which features Evolve technolgy from Agaia.

The launch of the product line, now available in more than 2,000 Walmart stores, marks a dramatic advance in bringing "green" cleaning products to consumers.

NEW YORK — The drug store sector makes for a sound investment for investors of all stripes, according to a Motley Fool report published Thursday. 

In early morning trading Friday, CVS stock traded at $63.59, up 4 cents; Walgreens at $59.16, down 4 cents; and Rite Aid at $5.17, up 4 cents. 

DEERFIELD, Ill. — Walgreens on Friday announced that it has completed its acquisition of certain assets of Kerr Drug’s retail drug stores and specialty pharmacy business. In fiscal year 2012, Kerr Drug’s retail drugstores and specialty pharmacy business recorded total sales of $381 million.

Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.  

As previously announced in September, the acquisition is an asset transaction and includes Kerr Drug’s retail drug stores, specialty pharmacy business and a distribution center. 

“If your brand was delisted tomorrow, would anybody care?”

That’s the cold, hard question retailers and manufacturers need to confront. That was a key message Shannon Curtin, Walgreens group VP beauty, personal care and seasonal, had for attendees of a special one-day summit co-hosted by The Drug Store News Group and the Mack Elevation Forum in August. “Care equals long-term revenue potential. When there is no care, brands simply do not exist,” she said.

Rite Aid’s efforts to convert the chain to the new Wellness store format have been running smoothly for a couple of years now, but it was this year that the chain reached two key milestones.

In May, the company announced that it had converted a majority of its stores in the Buffalo, N.Y., area to the format, for a total of nearly 100, marking the occasion with an event featuring John Standley, the company’s chairman and CEO, and Ken Martindale, the president and COO, as well as celebrity fitness expert Denise Austin.

CARLISLE, Pa. — Ahold USA is encouraging pork suppliers to start using open housing for pregnant sows by 2022, the supermarket retailer said Friday.

The company, which owns the Stop & Shop, Giant-Landover and Giant-Carlisle chains, as well as the Peapod online grocery service, said it wanted suppliers to transition from gestation crates to open housing, with the option of using gestation crates during appropriate times to keep sows and piglets healthy and safe.

ISSAQUAH, Wash. — Sales at Costco Wholesale in October were up by 6% over last year, the club retailer said Thursday.

Costco said sales for the month were $8.15, compared with $7.66 billion in October 2012. For the nine-week period that ended Sunday, sales were $18.01 billion, a 6% increase over the $17 billion the chain had during the same period last year.