Rite Aid Buys Bartell Drugs

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Re: Rite Aid Buys Bartell Drugs

Post by Super S »

marshd1000 wrote: January 22nd, 2021, 8:06 am It seems that Rite Aid closed on the sale of Bartell Drugs on December 17th 2020. I have not seen any news stories stating this. Also there is no mention on either the Rite Aid or Bartell Drugs websites. I had this confirmed by a couple employees at the two Bartell at Renton Highlands and Renton Fairwood. It is interesting that they are keeping it so quiet! I am wondering if it will be a relationship much in the way with Kroger and Harris Teeter, where it will be very hands off?!
I have to wonder if Rite Aid is possibly going to keep the Bartell name to run a more "upscale" type of store, or if they have considered rebranding some Rite Aid stores (unlikely when you consider how quickly they are changing stores to the new Rite Aid logo) Rite Aid really seemed to struggle for a while when they acquired PayLess and it's only in recent years that they have been remodeling many of those stores which still had Pay 'N Save or PayLess interiors.

But then again, Albertsons has proven that it is possible to run multiple similar banners in the same market, so it's hard to tell what Rite Aid plans to do at this point.
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Re: Rite Aid Buys Bartell Drugs

Post by marshd1000 »

Super S wrote: January 22nd, 2021, 8:35 am
marshd1000 wrote: January 22nd, 2021, 8:06 am It seems that Rite Aid closed on the sale of Bartell Drugs on December 17th 2020. I have not seen any news stories stating this. Also there is no mention on either the Rite Aid or Bartell Drugs websites. I had this confirmed by a couple employees at the two Bartell at Renton Highlands and Renton Fairwood. It is interesting that they are keeping it so quiet! I am wondering if it will be a relationship much in the way with Kroger and Harris Teeter, where it will be very hands off?!
I have to wonder if Rite Aid is possibly going to keep the Bartell name to run a more "upscale" type of store, or if they have considered rebranding some Rite Aid stores (unlikely when you consider how quickly they are changing stores to the new Rite Aid logo) Rite Aid really seemed to struggle for a while when they acquired PayLess and it's only in recent years that they have been remodeling many of those stores which still had Pay 'N Save or PayLess interiors.

But then again, Albertsons has proven that it is possible to run multiple similar banners in the same market, so it's hard to tell what Rite Aid plans to do at this point.
When the sale of Bartell to Rite Aid was announced, Rite Aid had said that the Bartell banner was staying.
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Re: Rite Aid Buys Bartell Drugs

Post by storewanderer »

marshd1000 wrote: January 22nd, 2021, 10:13 am

When the sale of Bartell to Rite Aid was announced, Rite Aid had said that the Bartell banner was staying.
Bartell has additional consumables and "decor" type items to offer on its front end that Rite Aid doesn't offer. Rite Aid has cut a lot of items over the past year. I am going to be interested to see if they move some of Bartell's front end merchandising programs into some of the Rite Aid Stores. At least they aren't making any hasty moves... yet...
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Re: Rite Aid Buys Bartell Drugs

Post by Super S »

marshd1000 wrote: January 22nd, 2021, 10:13 am
When the sale of Bartell to Rite Aid was announced, Rite Aid had said that the Bartell banner was staying.
Yes, I saw that. I was just wondering if they had plans to rebrand any Rite Aid stores as Bartell. Keep in mind that Rite Aid is already in the area and there will be two banners present now.
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Re: Rite Aid Buys Bartell Drugs

Post by babs »

Super S wrote: January 24th, 2021, 7:51 am
marshd1000 wrote: January 22nd, 2021, 10:13 am
When the sale of Bartell to Rite Aid was announced, Rite Aid had said that the Bartell banner was staying.
Yes, I saw that. I was just wondering if they had plans to rebrand any Rite Aid stores as Bartell. Keep in mind that Rite Aid is already in the area and there will be two banners present now.
I would expect initial changes to focus on back end efficiency such as combining IT systems, moving distribution over to Rite Aid and consolidating vendors. I wouldn't expect any major merchandise changes for a bit.
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Re: Rite Aid Buys Bartell Drugs

Post by storewanderer »

babs wrote: January 24th, 2021, 6:36 pm I would expect initial changes to focus on back end efficiency such as combining IT systems, moving distribution over to Rite Aid and consolidating vendors. I wouldn't expect any major merchandise changes for a bit.
Does Bartell actually have a warehouse?

I know all of their items were from what looked to be third party suppliers (Premier Value brand OTC/HBA, in the past had some Western Family on food but don't recall seeing Essential Everyday there)...
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Re: Rite Aid Buys Bartell Drugs

Post by babs »

storewanderer wrote: January 24th, 2021, 9:40 pm
babs wrote: January 24th, 2021, 6:36 pm I would expect initial changes to focus on back end efficiency such as combining IT systems, moving distribution over to Rite Aid and consolidating vendors. I wouldn't expect any major merchandise changes for a bit.
Does Bartell actually have a warehouse?

I know all of their items were from what looked to be third party suppliers (Premier Value brand OTC/HBA, in the past had some Western Family on food but don't recall seeing Essential Everyday there)...
Bartels warehouse:
https://www.thenewstribune.com/news/bus ... 06131.html
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Re: Rite Aid Buys Bartell Drugs

Post by Brian Lutz »

Some of the back-end changes have already been taking place., and apparently there's been a fair number of problems along the way, especially in the pharmacies. When I tried to refill a prescription I was told tonight that due to a change in pharmacy systems (presumably to whatever Rite Aid uses) existing prescriptions have been lost in the shuffle, and that I would have to have the doctor send the prescriptions again to get them filled., Apparently there have also been a fair number of complaints on the local Facebook page about problems with Bartell's pharmacy, to the point that quite a few people are moving prescriptions away from them.
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Re: Rite Aid Buys Bartell Drugs

Post by storewanderer »

Brian Lutz wrote: May 21st, 2021, 8:42 pm Some of the back-end changes have already been taking place., and apparently there's been a fair number of problems along the way, especially in the pharmacies. When I tried to refill a prescription I was told tonight that due to a change in pharmacy systems (presumably to whatever Rite Aid uses) existing prescriptions have been lost in the shuffle, and that I would have to have the doctor send the prescriptions again to get them filled., Apparently there have also been a fair number of complaints on the local Facebook page about problems with Bartell's pharmacy, to the point that quite a few people are moving prescriptions away from them.
How can a chain lose existing prescriptions? Didn't they do a back up of the old system or anything? This is completely unacceptable to have to waste your time and the doctor's time to rectify this. Rite Aid does file buys of independent pharmacies all the time and has a process in place to transfer those prescriptions over to Rite Aid. How could they have this kind of a miss on a chain they acquired and would have had full control over the old systems of?

I would definitely find an independent pharmacy or a medium volume grocery store pharmacy and not look back.
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Re: Rite Aid Buys Bartell Drugs

Post by BillyGr »

For that matter, don't prescription bottles have all the information needed (Doctor name, quantity, number of refills left, how long they are valid for)? They could just take your existing bottle and re-enter that into the system if it was otherwise misplaced, and would be easier than trying to get new ones for everyone.
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