DUANE READE AT 40 WALL STREET

In the shadow of the New York Stock Exchange, Duane Reade opened its flagship store at 40 Wall Street on July 6. This state-of-the-art, 22,000 square foot space offers beauty, health care and food products 24 hours a day.

Duane Reade’s new space at 40 Wall Street

Recently, Beauty Fashion toured the Beauty Department with Duane Reade’s Senior Vice President of Merchandising & Chief Marketing Officer Paul Tiberio and Marcia Gaynor, GMM of Beauty. “The area where we are located is very prestigious with Tiffany across the street,” Mr. Tiberio explained. “Our nighttime traffic has been above expectations, as many local residents make this a destination for both food and beauty products.”

The building formerly was home to the Bank of Manhattan Trust, but was vacant for 14 years before Duane Reade selected the space. The upper deck was an ideal location for Duane Reade’s Beauty Department and the LOOK boutique, which is a showplace of the new store. “It’s upscale and carries brands you can’t find in any of the mass retailers,” Ms. Gaynor reported.

“We have about 25 LOOK boutiques now, but 40 Wall Street is the only one that has added certain elements like a Nail Bar and Hair Salon. Customers are looking for convenience. They can get a manicure in 15 or 20 minutes, and their hair blown out in 20 minutes for a meeting or a hot date.” The LOOK boutique provides hair and scalp analyses as well as skin analysis. “Once you get a customer in a chair for a skin analysis, ninety percent of the time those customers will make a purchase.”

The LOOK boutique keeps a record of customers’ skin analyses as well as records of their makeup choices. When the customer comes back to the store, they can check their record.

Ms. Gaynor discloses that Duane Reade is staffed with the “best Beauty Advisors. They are very passionate about their job; they love what they do and helping the customers. We do extensive training with new people for a six-week period.”

The Beauty Advisors are trained on all brands by the vendors who also come in to retrain on an ongoing basis. “Because they are trained on all brands, they are very objective and can sell anything or cross-sell,” Ms. Gaynor disclosed. “If you want to spend your money on a foundation or powder but not on mascara in the LOOK boutique, the Beauty Advisor will bring you back to the mass brands such as CoverGirl, Maybelline New York or L’Oréal Paris and sell that as well. There is no loyalty to any specific brand. The loyalty is to the customer who comes in and asks for help.”
The spa services, she noted are staffed by Aestheticians or Cosmeticians. “They must be licensed in New York State to work in the Hair and Nail Salons.” Mr. Tiberio added, “The extensive training that we do here has helped in fewer turnovers of our people. They also love the
atmosphere in the LOOK boutique.”

Mr. Tiberio revealed that there is “a lot of technology within the Beauty Department. We have Virtual Makeover kiosks from EZface and ModiFace as well as the Fragrance Tester and a skin analysis system by Philips Crystalize.”

The Fragrance Bar has 40 testers, 30 for female fragrances and 10 for male scents. “When the customer places a wrist underneath the tester, it works automatically to give a free spritz without picking up a bottle,” he said. “This is the first unit in a Duane Reade.” The mix of brands is all upscale with Designer, celebrity, classic and new fragrances from vendors such as Coty Prestige and Elizabeth Arden.
The EZface virtual makeover kiosk allows the customer to sample every cosmetic in Duane Reade’s Beauty
Department. A look for business or evening can be created so the customer can see exactly how they would appear. “You find the product you want on the shelf, bring it over to the machine and scan it in. You can then see how those colors would look on you,” Mr. Tiberio revealed.
“We have another virtual makeover machine called ‘Find Your Look’ which has a built-in data base, so you can pick and choose the various colors and styles you want for your lips, your eyes and blush. Maybelline New York and L’Oréal Paris are the exclusive brands at this time in the ‘Find Your Look’ virtual makeover.”

During the tour of Duane Reade, Mr. Tiberio highlighted the GOSH Cosmetics brand from Denmark. “This is one of our first stores to carry the GOSH line with a display set up by their marketing team. It is now exclusive with Duane Reade in the US. It has unique attributes such as eyeliners, lip glosses with mirrors and a lighted lip gloss which makes it easy to apply the product in the dark or a New York City taxi.”
“Customers know that they can find products here that they can’t find anywhere else,” noted Ms. Gaynor. “If they want their GOSH, they’ve got to come to Duane Reade.” Duane Reade is setting up exclusive agreements with vendors, which extend as well to their other categories of household and food products.

Ms. Gaynor pointed out there are no artificial ingredients in the 100% Pure makeup line in the LOOK boutique. The retailer also has Japonesque brushes and “our Duane Reade private label brushes, which Makeup Artists love,” she declared.
The BLOW line is carried exclusively at Duane Reade’s 40 Wall Street location, according to Ms. Gaynor, “because we have a salon. BLOW products are only sold in salons.”

What are also not available in any other Duane Reade LOOK boutiques are high-end mirrors, displayed outside their cartons so customers can play with the light adjusted to day, office or evening. On the other side of the display are hair blowers that are “plugged in so the customer can feel the power,” Ms. Gaynor continued.

“We have wonderful services and products in the LOOK boutique that we are able to offer the customer,” affirmed Asha Koshi, Duane Reade’s LOOK boutique Manager. “I think it is a complete beauty package where people can come and get their skin analyzed as well as their hair and nails done.”

“We have created a Mini Phyto Universe here at 40 Wall Street not available in any other retail environment without a licensed Beautician and a sink,” Ms. Gaynor revealed. “The Phyto Beauticians can do hair and scalp analyses as well. Phyto has also trained everyone in the LOOK boutique about the products.”

There is a Ramy Eyebrow Bar at the LOOK boutique with Beauty Advisors trained first by Ramy before they pass Duane Reade’s standards. Along with brow shaping and trimming, “we’ve added eyelash application in the LOOK boutique, which the customers have been requesting.”
The high-end skincare product displays feature a skin-analysis machine that will address particular skincare concerns. It also recommends the correct products for the customer.

In the Nail Bar, licensed Aestheticians give manicures. The fees are $10.00 for a basic manicure and $15.00 for a French manicure. Nail designs on a per nail basis are $3.00 each. The Nail Bar stocks only OPI and Essie nail products, but a customer may purchase another brand at the store to be used for the manicures.

Mr. Tiberio revealed that the Nail Bar occupies what was formerly the office of David Rockefeller when this building was the Bank of Manhattan Trust headquarters. “We even kept Mr. Rockefeller’s fireplace and mantel, which have been retro-fitted with the Nail Bar’s décor.”
Animation plays a major role in the Duane Reade Beauty Department. “We do a lot of events, whether in mass or in all of our LOOK boutiques,” explained Ms. Gaynor. “We probably have three a day in this store. They are on a

promotional calendar, and we let the customers know at checkout with bag stuffers and sign-up sheets depending on the event and the brand. We do email blasts to our Loyalty Customers to preview well in advance the events we will be running.”
Mr. Tiberio added, “Our Beauty Advisors let customers know on a regular basis when they have upcoming events, especially concerning the brands that the customers [purchase]. We’ve recently started to use social media including Facebook and Twitter to alert customers to our news and events.”

“We like to think of this 40 Wall Street Duane Reade as an incubator,” he continued, “for other Duane Reades and throughout the Walgreens network where we can make it viable in other areas of the country. We will continue to merchandise to the neighborhood and tweak each of the areas in which we operate. We will see what works best here in New York and then make it scalable to other urban markets.” BF


Duane Reade’s LOOK boutique at 40 Wall Street offers some product lines and beauty services exclusive to this location.	Duane Reade’s Asha Koshi, Paul Tiberio and Marcia Gaynor	Mr. Tiberio and Ms. Gaynor showcase the GOSH display.

Ms. Gaynor and Mr. Tiberio hold blow dryers that customers can try before buying.	Duane Reade’s Michel Zarcone (c.) with Ms. Gaynor and Mr. Tiberio at the Phyto device for producing hair and scalp analyses	Duane Reade’s Saroya Owens (c.) with Mr. Tiberio and Ms. Gaynor at the Nail Bar in front of the fireplace from David Rockefeller’s former office