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Shoppers Drug Mart Corporation

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Type	Public
Industry	Drugstore, Retail
Founded	1962
Headquarters	Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Key people	Dominic Pilla, President & Chief Executive Officer
Products	Drugs, Health
Revenue	$10.376 billion CAD (2010)[1]
Operating income	$897.0 million CAD (2010)[1]
Net income	$590.7 million CAD (2010)[1]
Website	www.shoppersdrugmart.ca
References: Number of Shoppers Drug Mart and Pharmaprix stores: 1,241 Number of Home Health Care stores: 63

Shoppers Drug Mart Corporation is Canada's largest pharmacy chain with more than 1,241 stores operating under the names Shoppers Drug Mart in nine provinces and two territories and Pharmaprix in Quebec as well as in Hawkesbury, Ontario.

Founded by Murray Koffler, the Koffler family still retains ownership of the Super-Pharm pharmacy which is in Israel, Poland, and China. Super-Pharm uses the same logo as Shoppers Drug Mart. It also uses some of the same private-label brands, such as Life Brand and Quo.

Overview[link]

Shoppers Drug Mart in Sussex, New Brunswick.

Shoppers Drug Mart Corporation is the licensor of full-service retail drug stores operating under the names Shoppers Drug Mart and Pharmaprix. Founded in 1962 by Toronto pharmacist Murray Koffler, the Company has grown to a network of more than 1,200 stores across Canada. These conveniently located stores are owned and operated by licensed Associate-owners, who have helped build a brand that is synonymous with exceptional service, value and trust. The Company also licenses or owns 58 medical clinic pharmacies operating under the names Shoppers Simply Pharmacy and Pharmaprix Simplement Sants, as well as eight luxury beauty destinations operations as Murale.

With fiscal 2011 sales of approximately $10.5 billion, the Company is the leader in Canada’s retail drug store marketplace and is the number one provider of pharmacy products and services. Shoppers Drug Mart has successfully leveraged its leadership position in pharmacy and its convenient store locations to capture a significant share of the market in front store merchandise, including over-the-counter medications, health and beauty aids, cosmetics and fragrances, seasonal products and everyday household essentials. The Company offers a broad range of high quality private label products including Life Brand®, Quo®, Etival® Laboratoire, Baléa®, Everyday Market®, Simply Food®, Nativa® and Bio-Life®, among others, and the Shoppers Optimum® program, one of the largest retail loyalty programs in Canada.

As well, the Company owns and operates 63 Shoppers Home Health Care® stores, which are engaged in the sale and service of assisted-living devices and equipment to institutional and retail customers. In addition to its retail network, the Company owns Shoppers Drug Mart Specialty Health Network Inc., a provider of specialty drug distribution, pharmacy and comprehensive patient support services, and MediSystem Technologies Inc., a provider of pharmaceutical products and services to long-term care facilities in Ontario and Alberta. http://www.shoppersdrugmart.ca/english/corporate_information/investor_relations/press_releases/articles/feb_9_2012.html

While the hours of individual Shoppers Drug Marts hours vary, many are open until 10PM or mid-night; some stores are opened 24 hours for shopping convenience.

History[link]

A Shoppers Drug Mart location on Dupont Street in Toronto, Ontario.

At the age of twenty, Murray Koffler inherited two Koffler's Drugs pharmacies in suburban Toronto (one in the Don Mills Centre shopping mall). By 1962, Koffler's had grown to a chain of 17 pharmacies, which he renamed "Shoppers Drug Mart" in the 1970s.

Koffler revamped the concept of the 20th century “drug store” in Canada by removing the soda fountain and emphasizing the dispensary, requiring his pharmacists to wear starched white coats as a symbol of their professionalism. In the mid-1950s, he began acquiring other drug stores and organized them around a then-novel franchising concept: pharmacist “associates” would own and operate their own stores within the system and share in the profits. In 1968, Shoppers Drug Mart grew to 52 stores in Ontario by merging with 33 Plaza Drugstores. In 1970, Shoppers Drug Mart purchased 100 Cunningham Drug Stores in British Columbia and Alberta. 1972 marked the grand opening of the first Pharmaprix store in Québec. In 1974, Lord’s Supervalue Pharmacies 26 stores in Atlantic Canada joined the Shoppers Drug Mart family. In 1986 Shoppers Drug Mart bought Super X Drugstores, an Ontario-area chain of 72 stores. In 1992, the company bought up the Western Canadian chain Pinder's Drugs, and followed this in 1995 with a chain of 24 Bi-Rite Drug Stores based in western Canada. Also in 1995, Shoppers Drug Mart acquired 135 Big V Drugstores. In 1996, the first Shoppers Home Health Care store opens.

When Koffler retired in 1983, he sold the chain to Imasco. That same year, David Bloom, a former Shoppers Drug Mart Associate-Owner, was appointed Chief Executive Office of the Company. Bloom would lead the organization until retiring in 2001, having devoted a total of 35 years of service to the Company. During his tenure, the Company launched the Shoppers Optimum loyalty program in 2000 which quickly became one of the largest and most successful loyalty programs in Canada.

In 2000, after Imperial Tobacco had been taken over by BAT Industries (formerly British American Tobacco), Shoppers was sold to a consortium of institutional investors including Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR), Bain Capital, Inc., DLJ Merchant Banking Partners, Charlesbank Capital Partners, Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, CIBC Capital Partners, and Shoppers Drug Mart's senior management and pharmacist/owners.

In 2001, Glenn Murphy was appointed Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Company. In November of that same year, Shoppers Drug Mart Corporation was publicly listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

In 2002, Shoppers Drug Mart introduced its first large format stores, with more space, a sleek and modern look, and a stronger focus on cosmetic products. Typically the cosmetics section faces the entrance, with the pharmacy counter at the back and a convenience food section, called Food Essentials, near the front cash. In most suburban areas, this new format takes the form of new or relocated store, typically stand-alone "big-box" locations as opposed to smaller mall or strip-mall locations.

In 2003, Shoppers Drug Mart introduced its first BeautyBoutique, setting a new standard for the industry with its open-sell display and unbiased approach to customer service in prestige cosmetic retailing. Today, there are more than 305 BeautyBoutiques across the country.

On April 26, 2007, Shoppers Drug Mart #1000 opened in Toronto, Ontario.^[2]

Shoppers Optimum[link]

This section appears to be written like an advertisement. Please help improve it by rewriting promotional content from a neutral point of view and removing any inappropriate external links. (November 2011)

The Shoppers Optimum Card is a loyalty card program that is exclusive to Shoppers Drug Mart/Pharmaprix stores. Any customer can apply to be a member and collect Shoppers Optimum points that may be redeemed on purchases within the store. Shoppers Optimum members receive 10 points for every dollar spent at the store. This excludes the purchase of lottery, tobacco products, transit tickets and passes, prescription items, any products containing codeine, Canada Post products and gift cards (except Shoppers gift cards). Sometimes, Shoppers Drug Mart organizes special point events where customers receive 20 times the regular points when they spend a certain amount. In 2006, the Company introduced Secret Point Events. Optimum Card holders receive in the mail a flyer announcing the secret event prior to the announced date. They bring that flyer in on the secret day to obtain 20 times the regular points. Only online registered card holders receive the flyer.

Board of directors[link]

• Holger Kluge, Chair of the Board of Directors, Shoppers Drug Mart Corporation
• Shan Atkins, Managing Director, Chetrum Capital, LLC (1)
• James Hankinson, Corporate Director (1)
• Krystyna T. Hoeg, Corporate Director (3)
• Gaetan Lussier, Corporate Director (3)
• The Honourable David Peterson, P.C., Q.C., Chairman & Senior Partner, Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP (1)
• Dominic Pilla, President & Chief Executive Producer
• Dr. Martha Piper, Corporate Director (2)
• Sarah Raiss, Corporate Director (2)
• Derek Ridout, Corporate Director (2)
• David M. Williams, Corporate Director (3)

(1) Member of Audit Committee
(2) Member of Human Resources and Compensation Committee
(3) Member of Nominating and Governance Committee

Advertising[link]

• "You're Gonna Be Happy." -- Early - mid 1980s
• "Everything you Want in a Drugstore" -- 1980s and the early-1990s
• "Take Care of Yourself" -- 2000 to 2002
• "Your Life Store" -- 2002 to present
• "Gifts Made Easy" -- 2006 holiday campaign

See also[link]

Companies portal

• List of Canadian pharmacies
• Super-Pharm

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Shoppers Drug Mart

• Shoppers Drug Mart
• Pharmaprix
• Murale
• Shoppers Photo
• Shoppers HomeHealthCare

Bust of Cas Walker

Orton Caswell Walker ( March 23, 1902 - September 28, 1998), better known as Cas Walker, was a Tennessee businessman, politician, and personality on television and radio. Walker founded a successful chain of small grocery stores that grew to include several dozen stores scattered throughout the Knoxville, Tennessee vicinity as well as parts of Virginia and Kentucky. From 1941 through 1971, Walker served on the Knoxville city council where he became legendary for his uncompromising political stances and his vehement opposition to what he claimed was a corrupt elitism in the city's government. "The Cas Walker Farm and Home Hour", a local variety show sponsored by Walker, ran in various radio and television formats between 1929 and 1983 and helped launch the careers of entertainer Dolly Parton and the Everly Brothers.

Early life[link]

Walker was born to a working class family in Sevier County, Tennessee in 1902. He quit school at the age of 14 and spent several years working at different jobs around the region, namely at the Champion Fibre Company in North Carolina and later at various coal mines in Kentucky. In 1924, he returned to East Tennessee where he established the first Cas Walker's Cash Store in Knoxville with money he had saved.^[1][2]

Walker's stores had a simple rural atmosphere that was popular with the city's working class whites and African-Americans.^[3] He used his radio show and other innovative methods— such as scattering coupons from airplanes— to advertise his store's weekly specials. By the mid-1950s, Walker's chain had grown to include 27 stores that generated a gross annual revenue of $60 million.^[4]

Politics[link]

Cas Walker display at the Museum of Appalachia

Walker was first elected to the Knoxville city council in 1941. He was elected mayor in 1946, but after a few weeks of tumultuous meetings and the firing of its own city manager, the city council managed to oust Walker in a recall election. Walker was reelected to the city council the following year, however, and remained on the council until voluntarily retiring in 1971.^[5] He continued to be a force in Knoxville politics into the 1980s.

As a politician, Walker successfully portrayed himself as a champion of small farmers and the working class. This image was enchanced in 1956 when Life Magazine published a photograph of Walker preparing to punch fellow city councilman J.S. Cooper after the two had engaged in a heated debate over property assessments.^[6] In his self-published newsletter, The Watchdog, Walker blasted political opponents and raged against tax increases. He also used The Watchdog to launch controversial attacks against his business competitors. In the 1960s, he unsuccessfully opposed plans to fluoridate Knoxville's water supply and played a pivotal role in derailing attempts to consolidate the governments of Knoxville and Knox County.^[7] Walker's political mentor-turned-rival, George Dempster, once said, "If I ordered a whole carload of SOB's and they just sent Cas, I'd sign for the shipment."^[8]

Walker continued distributing The Watchdog until the early 1980s, when a libel suit forced it out of publication.^[9] During the same period, Walker's influence helped defeat a second attempt to merge the Knoxville and Knox County governments.^[10]

Radio and television[link]

In 1929, Walker created a variety show known as the "Farm and Home Hour" to help promote his cash stores. The show initially aired as a radio program on WROL-AM and later on WIVK-AM. In 1953, the show adopted a television format for WROL-TV (now WATE-TV) and aired on various local channels until 1983. The show featured artists such as Roy Acuff, Jimmy Martin, Bill Monroe, Carl Smith, Carl Butler, Jim Nabors, and Chet Atkins. The show also helped launch the careers of Dolly Parton, who first performed on the program in 1956 at the age of 10, and the Everly Brothers, who were regulars on the show in the mid-1950s.^[11][12][13]

References[link]

External links[link]

• The Cas Walker Farm and Home Hour — IMDB
• Cas_Walker.htm
• Cas Walker's Store at Dollywood
• Museum of Appalachia — photos of Cas Walker in 1990
• Knoxviews.com — Life photograph of 1956 fracas between Walker and J.S. Cooper
• WIVK History