HME Providers Move into Wal-Mart

On March 17, Lake Forest, Calif.-based Apria Healthcare opened a pilot store inside a Duncanville (Dallas), Texas, Wal-Mart.

The Scooter Store, New Braunfels, Texas, is running branches in Wal-Marts in Montgomery, Ala.; Daytona Beach and Pensacola, Fla.; Hendersonville, N.C.; and Fort Worth, Texas.

Salem, Mass., provider Hutchinson Medical has opened two branches inside Wal-Marts in Epping, N.H., and Waterford, Conn.

And Lawrenceville, Ga.-headquartered National Vision Inc., which operates 400 eye care centers in Wal-Mart stores in the United States and Mexico, will open one or more HME test stores inside the world's largest retailer in the second quarter.

All of these companies hope to capitalize on Wal-Mart's astronomical foot traffic. Worldwide, more than 138 million customers walk into the mass merchandiser every week. Its U.S. operations currently include 1,478 discount stores, 1,471 Wal-Mart Supercenters, 538 Sam's club stores and 64 Wal-Mart Neighborhood Markets.

Hutchinson Medical was the first provider to set up shop in the retail powerhouse last October, making a commitment and completing preparations to open a test store in fewer than six months. A 30-plus-employee company, the HME has been in the same family for three generations and runs two branches outside Wal-Mart — its main location in Salem, and a Concord, N.H., branch specializing in sleep products.

The company's Wal-Mart locations are exclusively retail-sales-driven with product lines including prosthetics, bath safety, power mobility, lift chairs and compression therapy.

President Tom McAuliffe said Hutchinson “recognized the built-in marketability that Wal-Mart affords. A lot of the decision on where to put your retail location is a non-issue, in that [Wal-Mart has] already done its homework and determined all the logistics.”

He added that the cash-sales climate in the giant stores has been “kind of refreshing …. People who come into a Wal-Mart are more likely to pay [cash] for a scooter, lift chair or ambulatory product.”

“We are satisfied with the growth of these two locations,” said Troy Burke, Hutchinson's quality assurance manager, “and we're anticipating opening another Wal-Mart location in the not-too-distant future.”