Community: a Walgreens Pharmacy - new concept for former Rxpress locations?

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submariner
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Community: a Walgreens Pharmacy - new concept for former Rxpress locations?

Post by submariner »

I noticed this today at the Walgreens Express-turned-Walgreens Pharmacy location in Orange, California (Chapman & Main). It looks like a new branding attempt for these small-format prototypes.

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Community: A Walgreens Pharmacy by Aaron Slater, on Flickr

A couple miles down the road at Chapman & Harbor, an identical store still has "Walgreens Pharmacy" branding:

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Walgreens Pharmacy by Aaron Slater, on Flickr

I know these store prototypes are very unique to the SoCal market, but has anyone seen this branding anywhere else?
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Re: Community: a Walgreens Pharmacy - new concept for former Rxpress locations?

Post by Jeff »

I have noticed that one of these small locations in Downey is closing on Sept 20th. It is not having a closing sale at all. I'll have to keep an eye on this as it's on my way.

It's the store on Paramount and Florence.
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Re: Community: a Walgreens Pharmacy - new concept for former Rxpress locations?

Post by storewanderer »

http://www.drugstorenews.com/article/wa ... y-michigan

Looks like a specialty pharmacy.

CVS had (has?) some of these with a different name like Pro Care or something. They had locations in Portland, San Francisco, and Seattle long before CVS had any stores even remotely close to the west coast.
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Re: Community: a Walgreens Pharmacy - new concept for former Rxpress locations?

Post by veteran+ »

There was a Community by Walgreens store in Palm Springs (pretty sure it's closed now).

Very small but no drive through element (in a small shopping center with stores to the right and left).

I got the impression is was a "compounding" type pharmacy.

Are these other Community stores that type of pharmacy?
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Re: Community: a Walgreens Pharmacy - new concept for former Rxpress locations?

Post by Super S »

veteran+ wrote:There was a Community by Walgreens store in Palm Springs (pretty sure it's closed now).

Very small but no drive through element (in a small shopping center with stores to the right and left).

I got the impression is was a "compounding" type pharmacy.

Are these other Community stores that type of pharmacy?
There are Compounding Pharmacies which appear to be regular Walgreens stores. One such store exists in Portland. My guess is that the Community stores are acquired ones where they are basically a pharmacy only, or much smaller than a typical Walgreens.
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Re: Community: a Walgreens Pharmacy - new concept for former Rxpress locations?

Post by submariner »

Super S wrote:My guess is that the Community stores are acquired ones where they are basically a pharmacy only, or much smaller than a typical Walgreens.
These definitely aren't acquired. They've been Walgreens from the start. These prototypes showed up in Southern California in the mid 1990's as a 'test' before Walgreens opened up full-scale stores. Your typical Walgreens at the time was markedly different from Southern Caifornia's idea of drugstores (Thrifty, Longs, Sav-On, and Payless at the time), which were easily 2-3 times the size of your typical Walgreens with a much wider array of merchandise.

Of course the market shifted and now the midsize drugstore is the de-facto format nationwide. Many of these small Walgreens pharmacies closed, replaced by full-size units within spitting distance of the vacated huts. Some, like the two pictured above, remained.
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Re: Community: a Walgreens Pharmacy - new concept for former Rxpress locations?

Post by BatteryMill »

This is a new concept, yet some stores in it are closing down? Strange to see such, but I really believe it's more of a barebones, clinic-type setup compared to the actual retail stores.
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Re: Community: a Walgreens Pharmacy - new concept for former Rxpress locations?

Post by kr.abs.swy »

For what it's worth, I saw one of these in downtown Milwaukee last week. It was essentially all pharmacy, no drugstore.
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Re: Community: a Walgreens Pharmacy - new concept for former Rxpress locations?

Post by cathandler »

From what I've read the model for these stores is to either co-locate or locate close to hospitals and the focus of the pharmacy business is on more expensive drugs to treat chronic conditions.
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Re: Community: a Walgreens Pharmacy - new concept for former Rxpress locations?

Post by jamcool »

Do they do compounding, which the chain drug stores don't usually do?
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