Health Mart celebrates 10th by hitting $504M in sales

Drug Store News, August 20, 1990

Health Mart celebrates 10th by hitting $504M in sales

DALLAS - Health Mart Inc., the drug franchise program of FoxMeyer Drug Company, is celebrating its 10th anniversary by reaching the $504 million sales level in fiscal 1990.

Beginning with a store in Alamosa, Colo. in 1980, the program now boasts over 620 stores in 24 midwestern and southern states. An aggressive growth plan and the targeting of certain areas will help the program reach even higher bounds over the next several years, president Mike Webster told Drug Store News/Inside Pharmacy.

"Part of our five-year plan is to open 100 stores a year," Webster said. "We're going to concentrate our efforts in North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia and Arizona."

According to Webster, Health Mart is focusing on two distinct marketing strategies: looking for prospective customers in large metropolitan areas and targeting the small chain.

"Metropolitan areas will bring in benefits in terms of what you can do with advertising - television, newspapers, radio and the like." he said. "We're also going to target small chains. They have many of the same problems that independents have and have a hard time competing with the bigger chains of the world. They can't really afford to provide all of their services and marketing expertise on the same scale that a big chain can. We look at that as a real opportunity, and that will be our key thrust with Health Mart in the years to come."

Webster believes that a major success to his program is that the services provided are "menu-driven." "All of our services fit into a menu - the stores pick the ones that fit their particular market," he said. "It's not a cookie cutter operation. It's not |everyone gets everything because that's the way it is.'"

Health Mart's other major success lies in the fact that the company thrives in a family and partnership atmosphere. "We're more than just a supplier of products," Webster said. "Our customers look to us to provide the tools that they can't provide themselves, due to a lack in either know-how or resources."

Health Mart represents approximately 25 percent of FoxMeyer's business among independents and 10 percent of the total company volume. Webster emphasizes that Health Mart is the company's first priority in the years ahead. "We want the world to know that Health Mart is the way we go to market at FoxMeyer. That's our marketing strategy, that's our belief, that's our commitment."