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Charlie Bowlus, CEO of ECRM
July 20, 2011 - Cleveland, OH
Chain Drug Consortium has developed into one of ECRM’s most important partners. CDC
has led “Best Practice” utilization of our category and season specific Efficient
Program Planning Sessions. Their strategic approach enables the members to work
together with their top suppliers at the events to develop synergistic programs
which maximize sales for both them and their supplier partners, while enabling the
member buyers to maintain autonomy to serve their unique customer needs. CDC’s thought
leadership and focus upon innovation has helped ECRM to develop improve our systems,
helping us to streamline the planning process at EPPS and throughout the year.
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Bob Narveson, President/CEO of Thrifty White Drug
July 20, 2011
When Thrifty White Drug was approached to become a member of the Chain Drug Consortium
we were a bit apprehensive, in today’s environment every organization has to watch
their expenses and calculate their ROI on all expenditures. One of the most impressive
aspects of the program is the opportunity to bring a group of retail executives
together and capitalize on each others experience, identify problems and develop
solutions for the entire group. We soon realized that through the many programs
which are made available to all members, the return on our investment would be paid
back very quickly and joined as an associate member. As we continued to review the
program we realized it was in our best interest to become a Full Member. We have
stated many times that our industry needs to speak with One Voice, programs such
as the CDC help organize and unite us as we move forward to accomplish that goal.
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Tony Civello, President and CEO Kerr Drug
In 1997, executives from four chains ---Brooks, Genovese, Happy Harry’s and Kerr
Drug --- met in New York City and formed the Chain Drug Consortium. The purpose
of this joining was to gather strong regional chains and aggregate our buying power
to enable us to compete against the mega chains. The industry consolidation which
was occurring, and which continues to occur, made it essential that we combine our
buying power not with just merchandise, but with all of the services we need to
operate our businesses. One of the key, ongoing benefi ts that we realized from
this effort is the exchange of ideas between members and the value of shared intellect.
In 2000 we had expanded to eight chains and really needed to strengthen the organizational
structure of the consortium, and maximize the potential synergies. We brought in
Eddie Frisch as president of the consortium with the mandate to develop a more sophisticated
buying program. Eddie added additional staff in private label, import, and pharmacy,
and that infrastructure is realizing tremendous results. We are now well positioned
for future growth beyond traditional drug retailers, and look forward to adding
several strong regional supermarket chains to our group.
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Mark Griffin, CEO & President Lewis Drug Inc.
Lewis Drug has been a member of Chain Drug Consortium for six years now, the fi
rst two as an associate member and the last four as a full member. When we fi rst
joined, several members of our team felt it would not be a good investment because
our stores are different (up to 50,000 sq. ft.) with a wide variety of product from
lawn tractors to all the normal items of a drug store. After the fi rst year they
were convinced that it was a good investment and we should seek full membership.
We prove how utilitarian the Consortium is to work with in our unique stores, it
will work for any type of retail. We carry a large Premier Value™ assortment (approximately
900 SKU’s) and use most of the other services available to us. One of the biggest
benefi ts is the idea exchange, It allows us to increase our chance of success by
learning from others’ experiences.
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George Bartell, Chairman and CEO Bartell Drug
Our participation in the CDC has enabled us to benefi t from leveraging our combined
buying power, with domestic and import product. The CDC Premier Value™ product line
is professionally managed and much broader than any private label program we could
create on our own.
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Mark Crosslin, National Sales Agency Manager, Bayer Healthcare
We at Bayer Healthcare have been very pleased with the results of the working partnership
at the CDC. Each year we continue to garner more participation among the CDC members
as our incremental orders and sales continue to grow. We also have the availability
to discuss and share ways to improve both our businesses. This includes topics as
category leadership and shopper marketing insights. We look forward to our participation
again next year.
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Lou Martire, Vice President Trade Development Energizer Holdings, Inc.
Over the past years, Energizer has worked very closely with the CDC in developing
a comprehensive battery program that mutually grew both of our businesses. Regional
drug continues to play a major role in Energizer’s success.” “The CDC has developed
into a cohesive blend of regional drug chains that, collectively, has made an impact
on Energizer’s annual success. Energizer continues to reap a healthy return on our
investment from our support of the CDC.
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