flair another buy opp.. also WMT /kmart making out on viagra
AP Online, Thursday, May 21, 1998 at 11:05
TROY, Mich. (AP) - The nation's leading discount chains are
vying to lure impotent men with the price of the popular potency
pill, Viagra.
Kmart Corp. has taken out national newspaper ads to promote its
price of $39.99 for a five-tablet prescription. But industry leader
Wal-Mart Stores' unadvertised price is even lower - $38.98, the
company said today.
At pharmacies around the country, Viagra has been selling for
about $10 a tablet, or $50 for five tablets.
On Wednesday, suburban Detroit-based Kmart took out ads in The
Wall Street Journal and USA Today to promote its $39.99 price.
Kmart has 1,500 in-store pharmacies at its 2,100 outlets
nationwide.
Spokesman Dan Jarvis said the Viagra price promotion is a way of
showing customers that the chain is committed to discounts across
the board.
''This is offering the best prices - it is nothing new for
Kmart,'' he said today. ''This is a product that's helped a lot of
people. It's been very popular, almost a phenomenon, across the
nation.''
Arch-rival Wal-Mart, meanwhile, has quietly been offering five
pills for $38.98, beating Kmart's price by $1.01, or about 20 cents
a pill.
''That is our everyday low price,'' Bryan Holmberg said from the
retailer's headquarters in Bentonvile, Ark.
As at Kmart, Viagra has been a hot item at Wal-Mart's 2,300
in-store pharmacies, he said.
''We have been very pleased with the way our customers have been
responding to Viagra,'' Holmberg said.
Viagra, developed by Pfizer Inc., went on the market after
receiving Food and Drug Administration approval March 27. Since it
hit the market its sales have risen faster than any drug in
recorded history. In the first three weeks of sales, pharmacists
filled an estimated 150,000 prescriptions nationwide.
Analysts who had originally estimated the drug would draw sales
of perhaps $300 million this year are now saying it looks like it
will rop the blockbuster level of $1 billion and could exceed $3.5
billion within four years. |
