After prolonged debate and careful consideration, the editors of MMR have determined that Walmart be recognized as the publication’s Retailer of the Decade for the 10-year period that ended on December 30, 2020. (A special section detailing Walmart’s decade will appear in the March 22 issue of MMR.) In many ways, this was not a
Editor’s note: This editorial was written prior to NACDS’ decision to hold this year’s Annual Meeting as a virtual event. With the approach of February, the chain drug industry turns its collective eye toward April and the National Association of Chain Drug Stores Annual Meeting, that traditional harbinger of the industry’s spring, time of renewal,
SAN ANTONIO, Texas — For the first time in its 35-year publishing life, the editors of MMR have chosen not one but two Retailers of the Year. One of the retailers chosen is — no surprise here — Target, one of America’s two premiere discount retailers. The other — equally unsurprising — is H-E-B, the
WOONSOCKET, R.I. — MMR’s sister publication Chain Drug Review has honored Larry Merlo, chief executive officer of CVS Health, with its Lifetime Achievement Award. It was not a difficult decision. In 10 years as CVS’ CEO, Merlo has remade the company, leading it into the next generation of health care while simonizing its appeal to
Thirty-five years have passed since the initial issue of Mass Market Retailers rolled off the press. During that time, the editors of MMR have unfailingly named a Retailer of the Year each January. Our editors had much to choose from, for our definition of mass market retailers included grocery, chain drug and discount retailers. The
As 2020 finally and reluctantly gives way to 2021, the mass retail community is understandably optimistic about the year ahead. As background, much has changed, more perhaps than in any other 12-month period in the history of retailing in America. Foremost among these shifts in consumer shopping habits is the undeniable fact that online shopping,
It’s finally happened: Amazon has announced its intention of entering the pharmacy business. With that announcement, the potential disruption of the retail pharmacy business in America has become, in an instant, a very real possibility. Given Amazon’s well-documented ability to upset the settled order of things, coupled with the online retailer’s proven success rate in
Wednesday, October 7, 2020, will be remembered or fondly recalled by mass retailing aficionados as the day a microcosm of the mass retailing community assembled, virtually, to discuss the past, debate the present and predict the industry’s future. As background, the event was conceived, assembled and choreographed by Scott Emerson, founder and CEO of the
This is a story about a three-year-old group founded by several women business executives in 2017 to nurture talent and further the careers of women in the health care industry. The name of the group is WE, and among its founders is Andrea Fallin, a senior sales executive at Racher Press, publisher of MMR and
As anyone who really cares already knows by now, John Standley has been named president of Walgreens. The appointment is both surprising and logical. Standley is a smart and savvy chain drug executive, having learned his way around the industry through many years of toil and a variety of challenges, most recently at Rite Aid,
Retailing, it can be safely and accurately argued, appears to have emerged as the least cohesive segment of the U.S. business community. A case in point: the brouhaha over the wisdom of compelling customers and staffers to wear protective masks while on the premises. By any standard of measurement, wearing masks will do no harm.
There appeared recently an op-ed piece in The New York Times written by a (presumably) young mother of two, carrying the headline “Target, Don’t Tell Me You ‘Stand With Black Families.’ ” The article recounted the experience of this mother’s two Black children, one 13 at the time of the incident, the other 10, as they