Walgreens Research Paper

Walgreen Co. (Walgreens) and its subsidiaries operate a drugstore chain in the United States. “The Company provides its customers with multichannel access to consumer goods and services, and pharmacy, health and wellness services in communities across America” (Walgreen Company). The firm currently operates two mail-order facilities and has 7,752 retail drug stores located across all 50 US states, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia (Walgreens). Prescription drugs account

the benefits of a multichannel strategy” (p. 13). Walgreen’s image is about creating value and making shopping either for consumer goods or prescription drugs more convenient.

Walgreens has attempted to build satisfaction, value, and loyalty for their customers by remembering that loyal customers are at the heart of their business, and thus rely on a customer-on-top business model. To do this, Walgreens has learned the talent of listening and responding to their customers in the following ways: (1) to respond to the busy lives of their customers, Walgreens allowed them to fill prescriptions at different stores and offered them the drive-thru pharmacy; (2) customers who spoke other languages complained about the labels, and Walgreens responded by printing labels in more than 10 different languages; and (3) when customers with eyesight problems could not read the labels, Walgreens offered printed labels with larger font sizes so that customers could more easily read the bigger text (Berenbaum, n.d., para. 19).

Wal-Mart Corporation is one of the largest retail stores in the world. They serve customers in meeting their needs with low cost saving items. On October 31, 1962, Wal-Mart was founded and incorporated by Sam Walton in Bentonville, Arkansas. Mr. Walton went into business because he felt that items sold were too high for the average customer to afford. His focus was to sell products at low prices to get higher volume sales at a lower profit margin. He bought bulk products from different suppliers so he could incorporate savings into his pricing to lower cost for customers. Under the savings cost concept, Wal-Mart grew rapidly and surpassed its competitors in sales and generating profits.

I visited Walgreens today because I wanted to print out some of my pictures, and also I wanted to buy a digital camera for my mom. I choose Walgreens because it is one of the best company in photos and in the selling of digital cameras. My experience in using interactive tools, and digital displays was very interesting.

The second significant change for Walgreens in recent history is the purchase of Drugstore.com, a leading online retail pharmacy, in 2011 for the sum of $409 million. In addition, subsidiary companies of Drugstore.com were also purchased (Beauty.com, SkinStore.com, and VisionDirect.com). 4 Analysts have debated whether the recent acquisition should remain as a stand alone business or whether it should be integrated into the Walgreens business. Proponents of the integration argue that a consistent brand experience which extends from physical stores into the digital web will increase consumer loyalty. Proponents of leaving the online venture as a stand alone entity argue that integration of Drugstore.com into Walgreen’s will open up debate on pricing may diminish the consumer loyalty from Drugstore.com, thus negating the potential increase in sales. Walgreens has made it clear that it intends to leave the newly acquired online businesses as stand alone entities. 5

The Walgreens chain began in 1901, with a drug store on the corner of Bowen Ave and Cottage Grove, Chicago, Illinois, United States owned by Galesburg native Charles R. Walgreen, Sr.[6] By 1915, there were five Walgreen drugstores. He added several improvements to the stores such as soda fountains and luncheon service. He also began to make his own line of drug products and was then able to control the quality of the items and sell them at lower prices. By 1916, 19 stores were in operation, all in Chicago. And in that same year, all the stores were consolidated under Walgreen Co. The 1920s was a very successful decade for Walgreens. In 1921, the company opened stores

Walgreens was founded in 1901 measuring 50 feet by 20 feet by Charles R. Walgreen, Sr.. Mr. Walgreen was born near Galesburg, Illinois and his family later relocated to Dixon, Illinois at town about 60 miles north of his birthplace. Mr. Walgreens’ father was a farmer who turned into a businessperson and saw a great potential of the Rock River Valley (Walgreen, n.d., p.1). At age 16, Charles Walgreen had his first experience working in a drug store. He didn’t always have pleasurable experiences but it was a job with pay. He had an accident at a shoe factory that cut off his left middle finger from the top joint. This injury also stops him from playing any sports at school. After a year and a half with the

Walgreens’ principal activity is to operate a chain of retail drugstores that sells prescription and nonprescription drugs. The company also carries additional product lines like general merchandise including cosmetics, food, beverages and photofinishing. Walgreens is one of the fastest growing retailers in the United States and led the chain drugstore industry in retail sales and profits last year.

Walgreens is the more established and older of the two companies. It was founded in 1901 and until recently it added stores from mostly internal organic growth. CVS is the newer company and started in 1963. The majority of growth at CVS has come from acquisitions of other companies like Revco, Arbor Drug, Eckerd and more recently Sav-On and Osco

Strengths. As of 2008, Walgreen operated 6,934 stores in the U.S. and U.S. held territories, making it the largest retail chain pharmacy in North America (DataMonitor, 2010, p. 22). Walgreen’s recent acquisition of Duane-Reade, a prominent

Founded in 1901 in Illinois by Charles R. Walgreen, Sr., Walgreens was a subsidiary of Walgreens Boots Alliance. In the most recent years, Walgreen’s corporate strategy has been focused on mergers and acquisitions, the first of which occurred in 2014 when Walgreens purchased the remaining stake in Boots costing the company approximately $15.3 billion. (Walgreens, n.d.) With this acquisition Walgreens became the largest pharmacy/health/beauty combination retailer in the world, operating in all 50 states and 12 countries internationally. (Schauber, 2014)

Along with the company's strong market performance, the Walgreens Corporation continually shows considerable growth. 2006 ended with Walgreens' 32nd consecutive year of record sales and earnings ("Walgreen Co. reports..., 2006). Walgreens' 2005 sales of $47.4 were a 12.5% increase over the previous year and over $1.5 billion in earnings were a 15.5% increase over the previous year (Walgreens Corporation, 2006a). Furthermore, a new Walgreens store opens approximately every 19 hours (Carpenter, 2004). Consequently, the Walgreens name carries considerable brand equity as a nationwide retailer known for quality and convenience. In fact, Walgreens has positioned itself as the drugstore offering the most convenience (Walgreens Corporation, 2006c). As such, Walgreens offers drive-thru pharmacies in over 80% of its stores, and nearly 30% of stores are open 24 hours a day (Walgreens Corporation, 2006a). The company strives to offer a merchandise mix in line with this focus, providing customers with one-stop stopping for not only prescription drugs,

Wal-Mart is a general merchandise discount retailer, which was incorporated in 1962. Wal-Mart’s history is based on one man, Sam Walton, who changed the course of retailing forever. Sam Walton first entered retailing when he was a management trainee at J.C. Penny Co. in 1940 in Des Moines, Iowa. After serving in the Army in World War II, Walton acquired a Ben Franklin variety store franchise with his brother James Walton in Newport Arkansas, until they lost the lease to the store in 1950. By 1962, when the first Wal-Mart Discount City was opened in Rogers Arkansas, both Walton’s were operating fifteen stores under the “Walton 5 & 10” name, and were the largest Ben Franklin franchisee in the

Wal-Mart was started in Rogers, Arkansas during the early 1960’s by Sam Walton. (Ghillyer, 2010). Walton traveled all around the country researching what consumers wanted in a retail store. When Sam Walton fist opened Wal-Mart he