Loblaw to buy Shoppers Drug Mart

News & Discussion from the grocery retailers in the Canadian provinces & territories
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marshd1000
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Loblaw to buy Shoppers Drug Mart

Post by marshd1000 »

Looks like the Canadian supermarket landscape is about to change again!

http://www.seattlepi.com/business/artic ... 665752.php
Alpha8472
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Re: Loblaw to buy Shoppers Drug Mart

Post by Alpha8472 »

Big money is made in the pharmacy business. Drugs are very expensive and the pharmacy is where most of the money is made in drugstores. Supermarkets are having trouble making profits these days. Selling groceries is a low margin business. The profits are small. However, drugs have huge mark-ups. You can make so much more money on them.

Every supermarket wants to put in a prescription pharmacy these days since they are so profitable. Buying up a drug store chain will enable Loblaw to get drugs for a lower price and this will increase profits for their own pharmacies.

Who knows what will happen to Loblaw's own pharmacies. Maybe Loblaw will rebrand their own pharmacies as Shoppers Drug Mart Pharmacies. The brand is very popular in Canada and it may bring in more customers to Loblaw. Pharmacy customers often need to travel to others cities and it would be convenient to stop in to any Loblaw and have access to their Shoppers Drug Mart prescription records.

Often supermarket pharmacies are quite technologically stuck in the past. Supermarket pharmacies often are not linked by computer. However, major drug store chains have pharmacy computers that are linked. You can transfer prescription records online through the computer. Meanwhile, most supermarket pharmacies are all separate and if you want your prescriptions transferred, the pharmacist has to telephone the other supermarket pharmacy and get your records over the phone.
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Re: Loblaw to buy Shoppers Drug Mart

Post by storewanderer »

Interesting note is the pharmacies in Canada are all independently owned, or should I say, majority independently owned (lots of pharmacist owns 51% and chain owns 49% arrangements). I've been trying to figure out how this impacts the front end part of the Shoppers Drug Marts as I saw some widely and I mean WIDELY varying merchandising mixes depending which Shoppers location I was in.

London Drugs seems to have much higher volume stores than Shoppers Drug Mart as a whole. London Drugs reminds me of Longs Drugs about 20 years ago though it sells very different merchandise with many having a computer and electronics department; busy busy stores, stuffed with merchandise, some good values, lots of employees...
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