Amazon Pharmacy & Drugstores

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Alpha8472
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Amazon Pharmacy & Drugstores

Post by Alpha8472 »

Amazon has recently obtained licenses to operate as a pharmacy in several states and looks to be actively pursuing licenses in more states. In addition, Amazon now owns the AmazonRX.com website.

Perhaps Amazon is preparing to go into mail order prescriptions and become a mail order pharmacy. Or it could be that Amazon is preparing to open up pharmacies in many states. Now that they own Whole Foods it is possible for them to add pharmacies to their existing grocery stores. The company could do a combination and offer in store pharmacies and mail order.

There are Amazon bookstores scattered throughout the country and results have shown that the profit from them is not as great as they had hoped. These bookstores could be converted to drugstores. Amazon is large company and can secure good prices on over the counter drugs and also on prescription medications.

If Amazon wanted to, it could buy a pharmacy chain and also sell Amazon products such as the Echo or other electronic products. These stores could be like drugstores that also sell a selection of high profit Amazon products. They could compete with those Target Express stores which have pharmacies and a selection of discount store products.
storewanderer
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Re: Amazon Pharmacy & Drugstores

Post by storewanderer »

At this point Amazon is like politics. There are various factors and sources who are pushing an Amazon agenda. Much like such sources push various political agendas. They create the scenario they want to create. Whether or not it is true, is a matter of opinion in politics, but will be a matter of profitability and marketshare in this case. In this case, the scenario that Amazon is taking over every retail sector and currently the retail food and drug sector is the "target" that those factors are saying Amazon will be taking over.

All you have to do is look at what happened to grocers when the Whole Foods deal went through, and when the pretty small in real numbers "price cut" announcement was made. And what has been happening to the retail drug store stocks since the pharmacy announcement...

I believe Amazon's experience with Whole Foods will dictate how far into these retail stores they want to go. A bookstore with a few employees is a pretty low overhead operation. When you get involved with grocery stores, a lot of equipment, a lot of fresh foods, or when you get involved with pharmacies, licenses, a lot of insurance arrangements, you are talking some entirely different animals.
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