Ted Gladson Recognized for Distinguished Career and Industry Contributions

July 27, 2006.  Lisle, IL.  In 1971 Drug Store News begin to give their REX (Retail Excellence) awards for distinguished excellence and innovation for merchandising endeavors in stores.

Thirty-five years later the final REX award was granted to entrepreneur and merchandising innovator, Ted Gladson.

Forty-eight years ago Ted Gladson started his career as a pharmacist.  Over time he found that by mixing the store’s product selection and placement he could affect product sales and profits.  Long before the advent of computerized space management programs, Ted used a grease pencil and glassine overlay to plot out the shelfsets or early planograms.  Ted found that good planograms actually helped reduce his store out-of-stocks and improve sales.  The more he learned, the more intrigued he became with product merchandising and its impact.

While working at A.H. Robins, Ted was charged with launching Robitussin from a physician and pharmacist recommended behind-the-counter cough syrup to an over-the-counter product.  Walking into drug stores, Ted’s merchandising experiments and handiness with a grease pencil paid off as he worked the new product onto drug store shelves across the country.

Before long, Ted began receiving requests to share his merchandising expertise and started seminars for pharmacists on merchandising.  Driven by the market demand, Gladson and Associates was born as a merchandising company. Intrigued store owners would then use Gladson for planograms and merchandising expertise.

Merchandising more and more stores, Ted found that the shelf selections available more often than not did not fit his merchandising vision.  Working under timing and delivery constraints of other companies was also frustrating and time consuming, thus Gladson and Associates began to design store layouts and established vendor relations to produce the sets needed.  Combining the store demographic areas, competitive environments, equipment requirements and merchandising needs, Gladson and Associates naturally transitioned into doing new stores and remodels for independent drug store retailers.  Today, Gladson still produces the most innovative, award winning store designs and has completed well over 5,000 store remodels working with approximately 20 percent of the independent market.

Meanwhile, space management was becoming more popular.  Detailed information was needed on product packaging and Gladson and Associates was up to the challenge.  Products were borrowed from local stores at the close of the business day, taken to the Gladson office where dimensions and black and white images were quickly captured, and then returned to the store before it opened for business the next day.  In 1985 Gladson bought its first computer.  Eleven months were spent recapturing the database of images in color.

There was no roadmap for success, no merchandising rules or for a long time no computers.  Vision driven by business necessities pushed Ted forward.  Ted’s innovation played a strong hand in creating today’s merchandising environment.  Gratefully this innovation has been recognized with the REX Award and Ted graciously accepted the honor.

Gladson Interactive continues to innovate.  Consumer product details including ingredients, instructions and nutritional content, size, and images are collected at the rate of 3,000 - 4,000 new products each week.  Gladson Interactive also is the largest supplier of shelf tags and strips equipped with product images and product symbology designating important product health attributes.

Contact us at Newsletterinfo@gladson.com
View the Gladson Newsletter Archives