BEST BUY TESTS NEW WELLNESS FORMAT

Liza Casabona

MINNEAPOLIS -- The channel-blurring phenomena broke new ground in the whole health arena last week as electronics retailer Best Buy here opened its new health, wellness and technology test store, eq-life.

Lund Food Holdings, Edina, Minn., a 20-store upscale traditional supermarket operator with a strong commitment to whole health programming, is playing a significant role in the early stages of the store's development. For example, PrairieStone Pharmacy, partly owned by Lund, and which operates in four Byerly's and two Lunds supermarkets, will establish a full service pharmacy in eq-life.

Beginning this spring, Lund will also conduct nutrition and cooking classes from its Living Wise program in a community room located near the back of the store, said Michelle Crouteau, spokeswoman for the supermarket chain. Lund's partnership with the eq-life test store will be cross promoted by both retailers, she said.

Among other attributes, the store includes a 4,000-square-foot DaySpa and Salon, and a Caribou Coffee cafe.

The 18,000-square-foot eq-life integrates traditional and innovative merchandise and information with in-store services, organized around the promotion of a healthy lifestyle, according to statements from Mike Marolt, president of eq-life. The concept behind the store was to offer customers products, information and services under one roof to assist them on their "personal journeys to better balance, health and well-being," he said.

"At Best Buy, the vision is to make people's lives fun and easy. Eq-life is extending that vision by helping people integrate health and lifestyle products, services and technology that support their journey to better health," eq-life spokeswoman Sue Lee told SN. Stressing that the test was in its early stages, she declined to speculate about future expansion.

Included in the product mix of the eq-life store are lifestyle products and consumer electronics such as air ionizers, massagers, therapeutic pillows, health monitoring devices, MP3 players, portable DVD players and cell phones.

More traditional whole health products offered in the eq-life store include nutritional supplements, yoga and Pilates accoutrements, personal care products, aromatherapy and essential oils, and organic cleaning products.

In addition to nutrition and cooking classes the community room will hold regularly scheduled yoga and Pilates classes, as well as educational seminars on health-related topics hosted by Park Nicollet Health Services, Minneapolis. Dietitians, nurse practitioners and diabetes educators from Park Nicollet will also keep regular hours in the store.

Eq-life holds special significance because it is being developed by Best Buy, which is primarily an electronics retailer that does not have roots in this product area, said Jim Wisner, president, Wisner Marketing Group, Libertyville, Ill. "It underscores the scope of the opportunity that's here," he said.

With eq-life, Best Buy has established a destination outlet for products and services that are difficult to find elsewhere, Wisner pointed out. He compared the approach to "a Williams & Sonoma for health and wellness buffs." For example, among the services will be health screenings and personal consultations by the nurse practitioners and dietitian.

In its present incarnation, eq-life won't have much of a competitive impact on mainstream retailers as the approach initially will appeal to a hard-core wellness audience already familiar with the products and services offered, Wisner said.

"This is the first attempt to extract these elements and create a whole store out of them. The emphasis [in eq-life] is much, much stronger on slower-turning, higher-priced merchandise, and far less on everyday kind of products."

The boutique-like uniqueness of the store may help insulate area retailers against an immediate competitive effect, he said. "Until they put up a couple dozen of these, I don't think it will impact area retailers. I don't see them doing the mainstream products particularly well. That is a weak spot of this format."

Lund Food Holdings sees eq-life as a "natural partnership," said Crouteau.

"We believe there are some synergies. They are looking at lifestyle and whole heath, and food can be a component of that," she said. Eq-life offers a different range of services from the Lund stores with their focus on whole health in health and beauty care, and particularly in food.

According to statements from the eq-life, the primary demographic target for the test store is women trying to balance family, career, household, travel, aging parents and other responsibilities.