Delores Wolf, right, a wellness advocate at Max Wellness, helps Casey Castle find skin care products at the Westlake store last week. (West Life photo by Larry Bennet)

OfficeMax founder opens health/wellness store
By Kevin Kelley
Westlake
Published Jan. 20, 2010

Michael Feuer, co-founder and former CEO of OfficeMax, came up with the idea of a health and wellness store at the same time he thought of the office supply store chain in 1988. But the nation’s demographics weren’t right to support such a store, he said. So Feuer launched OfficeMax, which he owned until 2003.

But with the aging baby boomer generation striving to stay young, or at least healthy, now is a great time for such a store.

“People see themselves as they want to be, not as they are,” Feuer said. “The truth is, age is relative. If you’re 50, you don’t want to be 50. You want to be 40. If you’re 60, you want to be 50. Just because you’ve gotten older doesn’t mean you want to be inactive.”

The first of Feuer’s new stores, called Max Wellness, opened Jan. 11 at the Promenade at Crocker Park.

The 6,000-square-foot location offers nearly 7,000 products, ranging from vitamins to blood pressure monitors and air purifiers to walkers.

Personal oxygen canisters from a company called Boost Oxygen sell for $14.99. The canisters, which come in different flavors such as eucalyptus, peppermint and coffee, promise to increase one’s energy level. Other suggested uses include relief from jet lag and hangovers.

A bookshelf holds dozens of health and wellness books. And a “sexual well being” shelf offers, um, personal massagers.

Max Wellness is designed to provide one-stop shopping for individuals looking for products to enhance their lives, Feuer said.

“I look at everything through the eyes of the customer,” he said.

Max Wellness CEO Michael Feuer, center, speaks with Jack and Jackie Woods and their granddaughter, Reagan Gray, during a grand openig reception at the Westlake store Jan. 14.

The store’s mission, Feuer said, is to provide people with answers on how to live healthy.

“The point to me became, ‘Why not put everything under one roof, put the products in logical categories where people can shop?’” Feuer told West Life.

The difference between Max Wellness and a typical drugstore, Feuer said, is the level of service. Store employees, called “wellness advocates,” receive 50 hours of classroom training to become knowledgeable about the products.

The key to Max Wellness being financially successful, Feuer told West Life, is to get customers in the habit of coming back every month to purchase new products.

Feuer said he launched Max Wellness in Westlake because he resides in Northeast Ohio and many of his business contacts are located here. He acknowledged that the first store will serve as a testing ground for what he hopes will be a national chain.

Allison Stefanov and Brian Fletcher of Bauerfeind demonstrate the company's 3-D video system for taking volumetric measurements of a person's legs to ensure the proper fit of compression hosiery, used to treat circulation problems. More than 20 different sizes of compression hosiery are sold at Max Wellness.

“This is an experiment,” he said of the Promenade location, which employs four full-time and eight part-time workers.

Next month, two new Max Wellness stores will open in Florida, specifically in Sarasota and Naples, where Feuer has a second home.

A second Northeast Ohio store will open on Chagrin Boulevard in Woodmere in March.

Feuer said he plans to open five more stores by the end of 2010, 11 to 15 next year and 20 to 30 each year thereafter.

“I didn’t do this for four or five stores. It’s not worth my time,” Feurer said. “This is to build a national chain, be the first mover in a category and create a new retail channel.”

Max Wellness will start selling products over the Internet within three months, Feuer said. Feuer said he believes the most successful retailers will be those that have both brick-and-mortar locations as well as Internet stores. Physical stores give a retailer greater credibility with customers, he said.

“People are not hermits. People do not live in caves,” he said. “The truth is, people still get out.”

On the Web:

• Mex Wellness corporate Web site