BENTONVILLE, Ark. -- WalMart sees the over-the-counter drug department as playing an important role in its efforts to provide consumers with access to affordable medications and other health and wellness products.
Vice president and divisional merchandise manager Chuck Fehlig is responsible for overseeing the buying and replenishment of all O-T-C merchandise. His priority is ensuring that each store has the right items to meet the needs of the local community.
Among them are the latest O-T-C product introductions, including items that have switched from prescription to O-T-C status.
'That's very important,' Fehlig says. 'Several years ago the average consumer probably would not have thought of WalMart as the place to go for a new O-T-C product, whether it was an Rx switch or not.
'But that has changed, and now with anything new-whether its is movie releases or the latest medications--people do think of Wal-Mart as the place that will have it first and have it at the best pace. And that's extremely important to us.'
Fehlig says Wal-Mart strives to be first to market with prescription to O-T-C switches, in part because of what such medications can mean to an important part of the retailer's customer base.
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'Many times these are significant drugs that a lot of our shoppers may not have been able to afford previously, or perhaps they couldn't afford to go to the doctor to get a prescription for it,' he points out. 'So having the O-T-C version just provides access immediately to those people, so it's very important in terms of our ability to serve those consumers.'
Another focus, which WalMart addresses through its 'store of the community' initiatives, involves making sure that store assortments are tuned to meet local needs and product preferences.
'Most of that is pretty obvious,' Fehlig says. 'We would have a bigger arthritis section in Phoenix or in South Florida than we would in Salt Lake City, for example, and we'd have a bigger allergy section in the Texas Hill Country.
'In some places we'll have Hispanic modulars, with additional Hispanic products. And in many markets in the Southeast the No. 1 analgesic is not Advil or Tylenol--it's BC powders or Goody's powders. So obviously we'd have a much larger selection of powders in those locations.'
Fehlig's team also works closely with Wal-Mart's pharmacy merchants and operators as well, in part to make sure phaImacists are aware of everything available in the O-T-C department. 'The pharmacists do a great job of understanding our customers,' Fehlig says. 'And in many cases if there's a lowerprice O-T-C alternative, they'll point them in that direction.'
The O-T-C buying team also gets a lot of input from pharmacists about products that their patients are seeking and, of course, the pharmacist can be an important resource for customers who have questions about O-T-C remedies. Fehlig notes that Wal-Mart tries to design its O-T-C departments so that the kinds of products customers typically have the most questions about are closest to the pharmacy.
Wal-Mart has also found that the pharmacy contributes to sales of O-T-C products in other ways as well.
'In past years when we tracked it, where we went back and added a pharmacy to a store that didn't have one, we would see sales gains of 15% to 25% in those categories out in front of the pharmacy counter,' Fehlig says. 'A lot of it was probably due to the extra traffic the pharmacy generates, but I think that just having the pharmacist there also adds credibility to the whole health care department, and makes the store more of a health care destination.'
Wal-Mart sees the potential for similar synergies in stores with vision centers and in those with walk-in health clinics, according to Fehlig.
Getting the assortment right is critical because even though some of Wal-Mart's stores are 200,000 square feet or larger, the health and beauty department (including O-T-Cs) is typically smaller than that in a traditional drug store.
'We actually have less space for those categories,' Fehlig says. 'And because of the velocity of the SKUs we do carry, we often have to provide them with more shelf space just to stay in stock.
'So our focus is try to carry those items that our customers really need and want, and to try to provide a shopping experience that offers simplicity and clarity.'
