Suppliers of medicines are unanimous that women's health has been ignored until recently. However, effort seems to be made to deal with this situation. "The majority of [drug store] shoppers are women and always has been," said Jon Fiume, vice president of retail operations and natural products of Ritzman Pharmacies. "Certainly, there's been some different approaches to packaging and things of that sort to attract the [female] shopper in a stronger way than before."

Drugstores and food chains with strong pharmacy businesses, have made inroads in dealing with women's health. This resulted in better availability of literature. Moreover, pharmacists are better-informed to answer customer questions.

Others decided to provide better access to women's health-related products and information in their stores. CVS, for example, has introduced a series of in-store initiatives aimed at creating a more female-friendly shopping environment. CVS has recently started to develop a redesigned beauty care department. The set was moved to the front of its stores and a special display unit, Healthy Women, was used as a "window" into more traditional health care, leading the customer from beauty into the OTC quadrant of the store. Such actions as introducing a "look-good/feel-good" marketing strategy, the Healthy Women set showcases beauty care, natural health and more conventional OTC products, grouped together to reflect a particular issue in women's health. It is changed every two months. Currently, CVS Healthy Women is concentrated on breast cancer awareness.

But such actions are not necessarily aimed at attracting more women into the drugstore. Frankly speaking, it could be very difficult due to the fact that 75%-80%of all drugstore customers are women. The real problem is to drive up the total marketbasket of those female shoppers. "If you support [a dedicated section] with cross-merchandising and educational [materials] ... you'll get multiple purchases," said Bayer Consumer Care marketing director for nutritionals Michaela Griggs.

Ritzman takes more of a detailed approach to promote women's health. The chain has created dedicated supplement sections to focus on heart health, bone health, osteoporosis, PMS and menopause. But Ritzman promotes other more traditional OTC women's health-related items, such as OTC menstrual pain medications, migraine-indicated analgesics and therapeutic hand lotions in line with its other Pain relief and skin care offerings. "Thanks to this, women are more likely to shop the entire store looking for specific products rather than perusing just one specific section" Fiume said.

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