RETAIL

Diverse Product Mix: Arlo Guthrie put it, “You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant.”

Now that’s becoming true at other places, too. Retailers are breaking with custom to give shoppers an increasingly diverse product mix.

Supermarket operator Vons recently began to offer Abbey Home Healthcare products and services through 20 Pavilion Pharmacy locations in Southern California. Home health care items now available through the pharmacies include hospital-type beds, oxygen, diabetic supplies, wheelchairs, humidifiers, respiratory supplies and nutritional products.

Vons has added such items to “save time and trouble” for shoppers who have specialized health-care needs, said Paul Knerr, Vons’ director of pharmacy operations.