an Ask Your Pharmacist e-mail section (Lehbar-Friedman 1). Some patients do not like to go to the pharmacy because of privacy issues. Walgreens.com would provide this privacy, as well as quick and easy service. In the spring of 2000, Walgreen Company anticipates offering other non-pharmacy drugstore items for sale though its Web site (http://www.investor.walgreens.com/news/19991027-12222.htr). The future of the Internet may even include the utilization of on-line doctors. This is where technology is predicted to go. The patient would fill out a questionnaire on-line and a physician would review it and decide if a prescription is needed. There is, however, some serious concern for this next wave of growth. If a patient and the physician never have any direct contact, the patient may receive the wrong medication, or fraud may occur and the patient may not be sick at all (Ukens 2). Having said all of this, the Internet poses an opportunity for growth and increased market share.Focusing on beauty products is yet another opportunity that Walgreen Company plans to pursue. Expansion of product lines and the addition of complementary and related products have proven to be beneficial. The plan is to take advantage of this opportunity by opening stores that feature a larger and more open beauty department. The beauty department currently accounts for eight percent of its drugstore sales (Brookman 1). Walgreen Company accumulated sales of $17.8 billion in 1999, therefore time spent improving on this expansion can prove to be profitable. Given this plan to increase the size of the beauty department, new Walgreens stores are now 1,500 square feet larger than the older stores. In the early 1990s the stores size averaged 13,000 square feet, but with the tremendous drugstore growth, the stores average 14,500 square feet (Bookman 1). With this added space, Walgreen Company has increased the size of the aisles to make a more comfortable...
