CVS closing 70 stores

storewanderer
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CVS closing 70 stores

Post by storewanderer »

Wow, I can think of about six CVS Store in Reno/Sparks/Carson City/Fallon alone that need to be closed. Given the size of the chain this is less than 1% of the total store count so I would say the stores they are closing must be some REALLY bad performers. With that said I am thinking maybe we will see one store close in Reno... also would be curious if any of the locations inside Target are deemed "poorly performing" and closing?
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Re: CVS closing 70 stores

Post by rwsandiego »

Here in Phoenix the CVS stores I've stopped in are almost spooky - no customers and weirdly laid out. I've wondered how they stay in business. Walgreens isn't exactly teeming with customers, but at least they don't feel like a mausoleum.
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Re: CVS closing 70 stores

Post by jamcool »

I imagine the stores in the strip shopping centers will be many of the closures...most of those are former Skaggs/Osco/Sav-on sites with more floor space than CVS needs
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Re: CVS closing 70 stores

Post by pseudo3d »

jamcool wrote:I imagine the stores in the strip shopping centers will be many of the closures...most of those are former Skaggs/Osco/Sav-on sites with more floor space than CVS needs
Your quote immediately made me think of the former Katz City in Springfield. Realistically, though, I'm thinking that the victims here will be the stores in rougher neighborhoods with high shrinkage.
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Re: CVS closing 70 stores

Post by storewanderer »

rwsandiego wrote:Here in Phoenix the CVS stores I've stopped in are almost spooky - no customers and weirdly laid out. I've wondered how they stay in business. Walgreens isn't exactly teeming with customers, but at least they don't feel like a mausoleum.
That is how the CVS Stores in NV/NorCal are too. The former Longs are generally clean and well maintained, with friendly employees, but do little to no business. The Longs purchase has been a failure for CVS and they won't be able to keep this covered up forever. The former Sav-Ons tend to be a little busier, but are filthy dirty, messy, and poorly stocked, with okay at best employees. The former Sav-Ons in Reno and Sparks are some of the worst run retail stores I have ever seen anywhere. I see a fairly steady stream of customers going to the pharmacy in some of these stores which I guess is enough to keep them going but I really question how having 35,000 square foot stores that never have more than a few people inside at a time is cost effective.

I have also noticed CVS has a few different pricing schematics they use here and it does not really make sense to me. We are talking .10-.50 different in price per item (gets up to a $1 difference if you are looking at $35 electronic toothbrush replacement heads). I have found the lowest priced stores here to be Oddie Blvd. in Sparks (a large former Longs that does no business), Northtowne Lane in Reno (a store CVS built itself, opened as 24 hours but quickly eliminated that, seems to have a few customers inside steadily), Highway 50 East in Carson City (another large former Longs that does little business), and Fallon (a former Longs/Rite Aid built by Rite Aid that does no business).

I get a ton of items for little money/free at CVS combining their Extra Bucks with coupons and having so many locations around makes it easy to get the items. When they just had the few former Sav-Ons, out of stocks were so common... merchandise sales are such a small part of CVS's overall financial performance it does not matter much. I really wonder why they maintain the large stores when they could do what they do in a lot less space.
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Re: CVS closing 70 stores

Post by BillyGr »

70 closings sounds like they are just getting rid of stores here & there, perhaps some of the older locations where a lease may be ending and they don't want to do another one? Not sure exactly how many states they are in, but that's still one or two per state, which is (in many states) a tiny fraction of the stores they have.

Not sure what size the stores are elsewhere, but in this part of the US (NY upstate, where they have been for some time but also purchased some small chains, like Revco) the free standing stores tend to be the same size as the ones the other chains (Rite Aid and a few Walgreens) have built. They do still have some older stores (a couple in shopping malls and others in strip plazas) that tend to be smaller - I suspect that in most cases they either haven't found a good spot to build (to move the stores out of strips into freestanding) and/or the few in malls are busy malls so they get enough traffic passing by to make it worth keeping (although those tend to be good ones to check for the deals as those shopping there aren't always the ones looking for the ECB deals or items that are being clearanced that match coupons for little or no cost).
The one other possibility is that they are in an area that is less busy, so they don't want to build new but also don't want to lose to others - one like that comes to mind. They built a new store a few miles away in the town (where Walmart and Target are) but keep the smaller strip store (in a strip with Hannaford and just up the road from Price Chopper - this happens to be one of the Revco stores, which prior to that was Brooks, long before they were connected to Eckerd) as otherwise that road would have nothing but several Rite Aid stores (both their own and one inherited from Eckerd) and those heading to the supermarkets might not travel to their newer location if they didn't need to go that way.
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Re: CVS closing 70 stores

Post by Super S »

storewanderer wrote:Wow, I can think of about six CVS Store in Reno/Sparks/Carson City/Fallon alone that need to be closed. Given the size of the chain this is less than 1% of the total store count so I would say the stores they are closing must be some REALLY bad performers. With that said I am thinking maybe we will see one store close in Reno... also would be curious if any of the locations inside Target are deemed "poorly performing" and closing?
I don't think CVS has had long enough to figure out yet how the Target locations are performing. But I am curious if any freestanding CVS locations near Target stores will end up closing. As for Target itself, that chain seems to be keeping a lower than usual profile while they sort out their own issues.
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Re: CVS closing 70 stores

Post by arizonaguy »

If CVS closes a pharmacy in a Target store, is there anything that would prevent Target from partnering with another pharmacy operator and/or opening up a pharmacy on their own?
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Re: CVS closing 70 stores

Post by arizonaguy »

rwsandiego wrote:Here in Phoenix the CVS stores I've stopped in are almost spooky - no customers and weirdly laid out. I've wondered how they stay in business. Walgreens isn't exactly teeming with customers, but at least they don't feel like a mausoleum.
I've been in some very dead CVS stores in Phoenix as well.

There's a particular store that I used to live by that I could never tell if it was open or not as there was never any traffic in its parking lot.

Walgreens has actually closed a handful of under-preforming stores in the Phoenix area and seems to be more willing to close a store than CVS is. CVS here is a mix of former Eckerd, former Osco Drug, and stores built by CVS themselves (not including the Target pharmacies).

The former Oscos and a handful of the former Eckerds are the best performers. Some of the stores built by CVS seem to be in questionable locations and do little to no business.
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Re: CVS closing 70 stores

Post by Alpha8472 »

I believe that the agreement that Target has with CVS requires Target to exclusively use CVS as the pharmacy operator in its stores. There will be no other pharmacies allowed.

Perhaps, the closure of some of these CVS pharmacies is due to the CVS pharmacies inside of the Target stores. Some CVS pharmacies near to Target stores will probably close and the pharmacy records will be transferred to the CVS pharmacies inside of the nearby Target stores.

CVS would prefer pharmacies inside of Target stores. Those pharmacies are cheaper to run than a standalone CVS store. Standalone drugstores lose a lot of money on the front ends. The pharmacy is where the profit is made, and the front end is something that CVS can't seem to handle. Perhaps, some of these closed CVS stores could be converted to mini-Target stores with CVS pharmacies inside. That is what CVS would want. They would get all the profit from the pharmacy and let Target deal with the rest of the store.
Last edited by Alpha8472 on December 19th, 2016, 11:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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