TAKING CARE OF THE CHEMISTS: Forming Independent Pharmacists into a Voluntary Group

Abstract

The changing fortunes of the voluntary group grocers have been well documented, and to date it is grocers who form the overwhelming majority of group retailers in this country. Efforts to develop voluntary group trading in textiles and DIY appear to have made little progress; only in hardware has it gained a relatively secure foothold. But now the group trading principle has been taken up in another important retail sector. The independent chemist, increasingly losing out to the supermarkets and multiple grocers in his share of “non‐ethical” trade (toiletries as opposed to drugs), has formed a voluntary group — Care — with 15 wholesalers and an initial target of 3,000 retailer members, under the auspices of the National Pharmaceutical Union. This article describes how the group was created.

Citation

(1974), "TAKING CARE OF THE CHEMISTS: Forming Independent Pharmacists into a Voluntary Group", Retail and Distribution Management, Vol. 2 No. 2, pp. 26-29. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb017779