London Drugs has 49 retail outlets in B.C. and Alberta, selling everything from cameras and small appliances to life insurance and photo-finishing. The chain has also been selling computers for a number of years, but not Apple products. Not, that is, until now.

London Drugs serves mainly a walk-in clientele. It offers Apple access to a large portion of the buying public in Western Canada. "For instance, if you look at the whole population base of Vancouver, you're looking at our client base," says Stephanie Lett, Marketing Business Manager at London Drugs. "Eighty-five per cent of those people have been in to a London Drugs in the past three months."

This direct pipeline to the home consumer market is what makes London Drugs appealing to Apple. "A key component to our marketing strategy for the consumer segment is to ensure that our customers have ready access to iMac and iBook," says Dennis Manning, a member of Apple Canada's marketing team. "London Drugs helps fulfill this objective."

Consumer demand for iMacs and iBooks has been strong, Manning says, and London Drugs offered a way to get the products into the hands of those consumers. "With Apple's continued growth in the consumer segment and the phenomenal success of iMac, we felt that London Drugs was an excellent fit to accommodate consumer demand."

George Bulat, manager of PC Research at International Data Corp. (Canada), studies the personal computer marketplace. "It looks like they (Apple) are trying to expand their presence on the West coast," he says. He says this is a logical move for Apple, and that it should be quite beneficial. "They're just expanding their presence through the mass merchant channel."

Is this move towards mass merchants a shift in direction for Apple? Not really — the iMac and iBook are especially well-suited to the type of off-the-shelf distribution that mass merchant channels offer. "It's not an entirely new move on their part, as they've been selling through Future Shop (another mass merchant) already," notes Bulat, adding that this new arrangement will simply "give them (Apple) a foothold in the Western market."

Indeed, the match does seem to make obvious sense for both parties. It's less a case of London Drugs winning the "right" to sell Apple products in Western Canada than a case of two companies banding together for mutual benefit.

Wendy Hayes, managing director of Markham, Ont.-based Apple Canada, agrees. "By adding London Drugs' strong retail presence in western Canada to our channel distribution, Apple can now better respond to the phenomenal consumer demand for our iMac and now iBook products."

Wynne Powell, president and COO of London Drugs, also sees the deal as a triumph. "The addition of Apple products, such as the amazingly successful iMac, to our broad line of computer products reinforces our reputation as being one of the best retail sources in western Canada for computers."

Both iMacs and iBooks are already in-stock and available at London Drugs stores, alongside racks of toasters and tea kettles. These stores will also be providing technical support for the products, much like the other national, regional and local resellers and VARs that distribute Apple products.

Bulat believes the arrangement makes sense because of the plug-and-play nature of the Apple products and the wide distribution and persuasiveness of London Drugs. "Mass merchants make sense because these are consumer-oriented products," he continues, "At lower price points, availability is important."

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