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Walgreens' Battle Plan: Win Big in Beauty Biz
NEW YORK
Move over cautious and stodgy.
Walgreens is making a bold move to transform beauty into a more slick, glossy offering in a bid to gain the edge against its staunchest competitor, CVS Pharmacy.
The changes come one year after it acquired metro New York drugstore Duane Reade, which caught Walgreens' attention with its high-end, in-store beauty concept called Look Boutique. Now, Walgreens aims to take the best from Duane Reade's approach to beauty, while amplifying its strengths across its 7,697 stores across the country. Walgreens also is expected to benefit from the synergy with its purchase of Drugstore.com, specifically knowledge gleaned from Beauty.com and Skinstore.com.
I talk to Duane Reade everyday. We want to leverage both assets, said Shannon Petree, Walgreens' divisional vice president and general merchandise manager for beauty and personal care. As part of its strategy, Walgreens is zeroing in on premium-priced skin care, which dovetails nicely with the role of its 6,000 beauty advisers.
We want to focus on skin care and make sure customers have trained beauty advisers who they can rely on. We want to provide solutions, said Petree, who joined Walgreens from Wal-Mart in 2009. When it comes to cosmetics, we think we cover the category without leaving any white space.
Standing in Walgreens' revamped store at 20 Astor Place in Manhattan, Petree said the space showcases its urban beauty format. It's open, inviting and airy to let people come in and browse, she said pointing to a wall of windows that allow natural light to stream into the beauty department. It lets customers see what we have done. In this store, a brick gray wall accents the department in keeping with the bohemian feel of the neighborhood.
Along the back wall is a clinical skin care display stocked with French imports, namely Lierac, Vichy and La Roche-Posay. We see many shoppers coming to us for skin analysis, said Petree, who added she isn't ruling out the possibility of adding other services down the road.
Walgreens...