Rite Aid Initiatives Serve Company Well In 2014 Third Quarter
By Anna Rose Welch, Editorial & Community Director, Advancing RNA
After improving its online presence earlier in 2013, the company signs on with MCX to explore mobile commerce in the future
Last week, Rite Aid reported a solid 2014 third quarter with revenue of $6.4 billion, an increase of 1.9 from the previous year. The company’s same store sales for the quarter increased 2.3 percent. Like competitor Walgreen, which reported success in its recent quarter because of an increase in the number of flu immunizations and prescriptions, Rite Aid’s CEO John Standley also attributes some of the company’s third quarter success to its pharmacy’s performance. For the quarter, pharmacy sales increased 3.5 percent. Standley says, “Our solid third quarter results were driven by the continued success of our key wellness initiatives, specifically the strong start to our flu immunization campaign, and the completion of additional Wellness Stores, which now represent nearly a quarter of all Rite Aid stores.”
Currently, these Wellness Stores number 1,117, roughly a quarter of the company’s 4,595 stores. The new store format is known as the company’s “next generation store,” and has been a key strategy for the company to encourage customer engagement during their Rite Aid shopping experiences. These stores include diabetic diagnostic centers, interactive shelving elements, numerous hands-on displays, and a vision center, which enables customers to order their glasses and contact lenses through an in-store kiosk. So far, it seems that these new store initiatives are working, considering the Wellness Stores saw higher front-end same-store sales and script growth compared to non-Wellness Store locations in Q3’14.
In addition to these new stores, the company also has been refining its online presence. In the spring, the company launched a redesigned Riteaid.com site to help improve customer navigation and promote store sales. Not only does the new site promote which current services and promotions are available in stores, customers can also view weekly ad fliers, check loyalty card accounts, and order prescriptions. As the COO Ken Martindale said of the new website changes, “The online experience we provide is a key driver of our in-store business. By creating a website that is easy, informative, and engaging, we’re not only elevating the RiteAid.com online experience, we’re setting a solid foundation for growth in our in-store business too.” Indeed, Martindale says 80 percent of consumers who visit the website are also customers that shop in bricks-and-mortar stores.
Even more recently however, the company took a big step into the realms of mobile commerce when it joined the list of merchants signing on with Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX: a company looking to create a universal mobile payment system for retailers). While MCX has yet to launch an actual product that will enable mobile payments for those retailers signed up for MCX, it has already secured more than 50 merchants, including Giant Eagle, Kohl’s, and Kmart. Rite Aid’s senior manager of public relations, Ashley Flower, says that this partnership with MCX will be key for the company to provide its customers with even better customer service. She says, “Rite Aid decided to join this group because we support MCX’s effort to develop a retailer friendly mobile payment application. We are committed to offering our customers a superior shopping experience; MCX will help us deliver on this commitment by allowing us to provide a better shopping and payment experience — one that is faster and more convenient — to our customers.”
Read: MCX: Dark Horse Or Shoo-In?
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