Despite the Hamashbir Lazarchan department store’s Bnei Brak sales point targeting chariedi women being the chain’s only losing branch, Hamabshbir Chairman Rami Shavit, who is also one of the owners of the New Pharm drugstore chain has decided it’s time for the drugstore to branch out into the chareidi sector. Shavit has opened a New Pharm branch in a new commercial center in Bnei Brak that is especially adapted to accommodate the religious community.
“Entering the ultra-Orthodox sector is a big challenge for us,” Shavit said, “We are faced with kashrus demands and specific opening hours, and we have to adapt ourselves, but this is a sector that makes up 15% of the entire population, and it cannot be ignored.”
Shavit views the New Pharm branch as a pilot: “If it succeeds, we will covert the Hamashbir Lazarchan sales point in central Bnei Brak to a New Pharm drugstore.”
Special features of the new branch made to meet the community’s demands include having the hair coloring products and feminine hygiene products placed in a separate section for women.
The branch will also carry products with kashrut labels that do not exist in the chain’s other stores, such as Bio Vit vitamins and Materna baby formula that hold Mehadrin kashrus.
Special sales aimed at the community will also be offered, such as diaper and baby wipes sales that are expected to be launched now, after Pesach.
A screen will be placed in the branch to offer a discreet area for woman to test and apply make-up.
The branch was closed during Pesach, with the exception of the pharmacy which operated partially and sold medicines and baby products kosher for Pesach.
The chain is also searching for three new store locations in Yerushalayim, and plans to open eight more branches throughout the country in 2009.
{Ynet/Yair Alpert-Matzav.com Newscenter}
