Life Pharmacy Background - The Family Tree

In 1995, the then top ten stores (by turnover) operating under the Unichem franchise banner joined together and re-branded themselves as Unichem-Life.

The owners wanted to develop a new, truly differentiated pharmacy brand. The founding pharmacies had similar characteristics and business objectives - strong store location, above average turnover, uniformity in branding and a commitment to distinguish the brand with a superior retail offering.

The pharmacy owners formed an overseeing company, Life Pharmacy Limited (LPL) with the ten store owners holding all of the shares and directorships in the company.

Since then, the Life Pharmacy banner group has grown from the original ten director stores to include a further eleven franchisee stores. In 2005, Life Pharmacy Limited registered on the New Zealand Stock Exchange and 17 of the 21 stores became corporate stores with 49% Life Pharmacy Limited, 51% individual or group of pharmacists ownership model. The remaining 4 stores continue as franchisee operations.

The Life Pharmacy brand can be summed up as a major retailer of prestige brands in health, beauty and fragrance with staff members who are passionate about the business of providing leading products and outstanding service.

The general characteristics distinguishing a Life Pharmacy store from all other pharmacies in New Zealand are:

• High quality retail environment
• Prestige brands, some exclusive to Life Pharmacy in our locations
• Regularly changing product ranges to match fashion trends
• Active advertising and promotional activities using high consumer appeal media
• A wide range of personalized service for beauty advice with strong professional pharmacy healthcare
• Large mall locations
• Based in major urban centres
• Innovation

The stores are based in the Auckland, Hamilton, Tauranga/Mt Maunganui, Rotorua, Wellington and Christchurch.