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Re: Two CVS locations proposed in Boise

Posted: November 24th, 2018, 10:28 am
by storewanderer
Also this weekend I've noticed CVS has remodeled a few stores around Reno in the past year. They have remodeled 2 former Longs (Damonte Ranch Pkwy and California Ave.) and 2 former Longs/Rite Aids (S. Virginia St. and Robb Drive). These remodeled stores all look really good. They made the shelves higher and added many SKUs. They recarpeted into carpet "tiles" and hopefully they will actually clean/maintain the carpet this time around because they didn't the first time. They also put new floor tiles in around all of the coolers.

But most of the other locations around town are still pretty hopeless. The majority of the ones on the north side of town seem to be noticeably worse (dirty, many out of stocks, shorter hours, handwritten signs, ring bell for service, did I mention dirty?) than the ones on the south side of town. I wonder if there is different supervisional staff or what.

Re: Two CVS locations proposed in Boise

Posted: November 26th, 2018, 8:43 am
by Brian Lutz
Quite frankly, I think Bartell might be one of the things keeping CVS from expanding much in the Seattle market. So far I've only seen a handful of CVS stores here (primarily new builds) and the ones I do see seem to be some distance away from any Bartell stores. Bartell also seems to be doing quite well, opening new stores and remodeling existing ones when other competitors are either stagnating or contracting. That said, I think it's going to be very hard for CVS to buy them since they seem to be heavily invested in being the "local" drugstore in Seattle, and a merger with CVS would alienate a lot of their current customers, much like Rite Aid alienated a lot of Pay 'N Save/Payless customers.

Re: Two CVS locations proposed in Boise

Posted: December 10th, 2018, 7:27 am
by Super S
Brian Lutz wrote: November 26th, 2018, 8:43 am Quite frankly, I think Bartell might be one of the things keeping CVS from expanding much in the Seattle market. So far I've only seen a handful of CVS stores here (primarily new builds) and the ones I do see seem to be some distance away from any Bartell stores. Bartell also seems to be doing quite well, opening new stores and remodeling existing ones when other competitors are either stagnating or contracting. That said, I think it's going to be very hard for CVS to buy them since they seem to be heavily invested in being the "local" drugstore in Seattle, and a merger with CVS would alienate a lot of their current customers, much like Rite Aid alienated a lot of Pay 'N Save/Payless customers.
The thing about the Pacific Northwest, is that CVS is better known as the name on the pharmacy at Target than for having their own stores. Boise in particular really didn't have a local drugstore chain unless you count Albertsons and their failed Sav-On stores. But with pharmacies present in nearly every grocery store and discount store, CVS faces a lot of competition.

CVS could also be taking note about how Rite Aid entered the market through acquisition, and struggled for a long time after. It's only the last few years that Rite Aid has been remodeling most of these stores acquired 20 years ago, some which were last remodeled way before that. Some of the stores really were starting to look neglected.