Arbor looks beyond its home market and heads north in expansion push – Arbor Drugs Inc
Arbor looks beyond its home market and heads north in expansion push
TROY, Mich. – Continuing its drive beyond its home market in southeastern Michigan, Arbor Drugs will push northward this year with the opening of its first stores in Saginaw and Midland.
The 83-store chain will open two units in Saginaw and one in Midland before the end of its current fiscal year July 31, 1989, said chairman and chief executive Eugene Applebaum. Two new units will also open this year in the Lansing area, which Arbor cracked for the first time in 1988.
Lansing, Michigan’s capital city, marks Arbor’s first leap beyond the greater Detroit market since the chain shut down a short-lived, four-store expansion test in North and South Carolina two years ago.
Both the Saginaw/Midland and Lansing markets are well outside metro Detroit, but both are heavily saturated with Detroit-area media. “A third of the Detroit Free Press’ circulation is outside greater Detroit, and the local TV station we advertise on is picked up and beamed throughout Michigan,” said an Arbor spokesman. “That gives us a big advantage, because the consumers in these new markets are already familiar with Arbor through our advertising.”
Arbor is expected to move rapidly in coming years to build on its new presence in those markets. Applebaum has predicted the chain will grow by 10 to 15 units a year, and will number 150 stores within five years.
Arbor’s founder has also admitted an interest in moving beyond Michigan if the right opportunity presents itself in contiguous states. That move would probably come through acquisitions, he said.
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