Walgreens Closures Continue in San Francisco

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storewanderer
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Re: Walgreens Closures Continue in San Francisco

Post by storewanderer »

Rite Aid had great foresight to exit San Francisco nearly 20 years ago and unload its stores on Walgreens. That was quite an intelligent move.

Walgreens still has more stores than they need in San Francisco.

From the best I can tell there is little to no security in Walgreens. You are lucky to get a contract security guard on the overnight shift in a store with a history of robberies.
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Re: Walgreens Closures Continue in San Francisco

Post by babs »

storewanderer wrote: October 12th, 2021, 10:18 pm Rite Aid had great foresight to exit San Francisco nearly 20 years ago and unload its stores on Walgreens. That was quite an intelligent move.

Walgreens still has more stores than they need in San Francisco.

From the best I can tell there is little to no security in Walgreens. You are lucky to get a contract security guard on the overnight shift in a store with a history of robberies.
Rite Aid sold the stores in SF because they needed the cash and Walgreens was willing to pay up. Had nothing to do with foresight. Foresight is something Rite Aid has lacked for decades.
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Re: Walgreens Closures Continue in San Francisco

Post by storewanderer »

babs wrote: October 13th, 2021, 7:46 am
Rite Aid sold the stores in SF because they needed the cash and Walgreens was willing to pay up. Had nothing to do with foresight. Foresight is something Rite Aid has lacked for decades.
I agree. That was meant as a joke.

But is it a joke? Rite Aid wouldn't have been able to handle operating in this environment and would have just ended up closing the stores. They did get cash from Walgreens and got to pawn some bad leases off on Walgreens (which are probably done by now). They probably came out ahead selling to Walgreens those stores, vs. had they kept them open (and ultimately just shut them down- walk away with nothing except maybe a lease liability to keep paying long after shutting down).
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Re: Walgreens Closures Continue in San Francisco

Post by TW-Upstate NY »

I guess in this instance you could say Rite-Aid was a recipient of good old fashioned dumb luck. It happens to the best (and worst) of companies and in this case they got the better end of the deal.
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Re: Walgreens Closures Continue in San Francisco

Post by storewanderer »

TW-Upstate NY wrote: October 14th, 2021, 10:40 am I guess in this instance you could say Rite-Aid was a recipient of good old fashioned dumb luck. It happens to the best (and worst) of companies and in this case they got the better end of the deal.
Rite Aid got into trouble in San Francisco when Martin Grass decided to open stores in highly visible locations and signed some terrible leases on Market Street. Thrifty and Payless had a store or two each, all long established locations off the beaten path, in San Francisco in more "neighborhood" type locations. Walgreens bailed them out, you could say.

Walgreens San Francisco division used to operate independently from the rest of Walgreens; while it was on common systems with the rest of the chain, that was about where the similarities stopped. This was because these stores were an island of sorts for Walgreens where up until the mid-late 90's there was a heavily concentrated cluster of Walgreens in San Francisco (and a few scattered around other parts of the bay area; San Jose etc.) and that was all they had out west. They used to have different ads, different labor models, way different merchandising, and localized management. Ever since Walgreens decided to "roll" San Francisco up into the rest of the chain, there has been one problem after another. I do wonder if had Walgreens kept the localized management in place, they would have been more effective at addressing the various theft issues that are taking place. I am still not sure though, given the ways the laws are written at present, if anyone can figure out how to solve this. Target is still closing at 6 PM in San Francisco and has the most effective loss prevention in retail.
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Re: Walgreens Closures Continue in San Francisco

Post by BillyGr »

storewanderer wrote: October 13th, 2021, 6:37 pm I agree. That was meant as a joke.

But is it a joke? Rite Aid wouldn't have been able to handle operating in this environment and would have just ended up closing the stores. They did get cash from Walgreens and got to pawn some bad leases off on Walgreens (which are probably done by now). They probably came out ahead selling to Walgreens those stores, vs. had they kept them open (and ultimately just shut them down- walk away with nothing except maybe a lease liability to keep paying long after shutting down).
Though, in this area there were a few Rite Aid locations in the more "inner city" areas that did well enough to remain open (some were even newly built stores over the years vs. opening in an existing property) but once they were sold to Walgreens quite a few of them have since closed. So perhaps Rite Aid did know something about doing that type of location (though obviously in not as good areas, but still likely better than the areas out there)?
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Re: Walgreens Closures Continue in San Francisco

Post by Alpha8472 »

The problem is not just theft. The problem is that Walgreens has the highest prices and worst selection of items. The prices are so high that it is like price gouging. Ever since the corporate office has been doing the merchandising, there has been less and less appeal to the stores. They used to have souvenirs and really good things to buy. Now it is an awful place to shop at.

There are other drugstores in the city that have a better selection of items and lower prices.

The mayor and some of the city supervisors say that the reasons for closing the stores is not theft. The data shows that theft rates are down from even before the pandemic in 2019. Walgreens had managed to drive away their customers by high prices and awful stores. The mayor and supervisors say that the Walgreens' explanation of theft is painting the city of San Francisco as lawless. The news story is making headlines across the country and is discouraging tourism to the city. The mayor believes that Walgreens had planned to close and consolidate stores anyway.

San Francisco is still a very nice place to visit and aside from the worst neighborhoods the city has a vibrant retail shopping scene.
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Re: Walgreens Closures Continue in San Francisco

Post by veteran+ »

I guess my experience is a little different regarding price, variety and customer service.

In the areas I have lived in recently (Palm Springs, San Diego, Los Angeles) this is what I gleaned:

Rite Aid: Bigger stores, very clean and organized, very good variety and merchandising, usually nicely updated stores, poor and often rude customer service and higher prices than Walgreens and CVS.

Walgreens: Smaller stores though some just feel smaller, clean and mostly organized, good variety and merchandising, updated stores, consistently better customer service than their competitors and lower prices than Rite Aid and CVS.

CVS: Awful on all fronts with better prices than Rite Aid but higher than Walgreens. Store size is all over the place with very different formats and merchandising.

I don't care for any of them but if pushed I would choose Walgreens.

IMHO

:-)
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Re: Walgreens Closures Continue in San Francisco

Post by pseudo3d »

Alpha8472 wrote: October 15th, 2021, 5:03 pm The problem is not just theft. The problem is that Walgreens has the highest prices and worst selection of items. The prices are so high that it is like price gouging. Ever since the corporate office has been doing the merchandising, there has been less and less appeal to the stores. They used to have souvenirs and really good things to buy. Now it is an awful place to shop at.

There are other drugstores in the city that have a better selection of items and lower prices.

The mayor and some of the city supervisors say that the reasons for closing the stores is not theft. The data shows that theft rates are down from even before the pandemic in 2019. Walgreens had managed to drive away their customers by high prices and awful stores. The mayor and supervisors say that the Walgreens' explanation of theft is painting the city of San Francisco as lawless. The news story is making headlines across the country and is discouraging tourism to the city. The mayor believes that Walgreens had planned to close and consolidate stores anyway.

San Francisco is still a very nice place to visit and aside from the worst neighborhoods the city has a vibrant retail shopping scene.

Of course the city is going to say that it wasn't theft, especially if crime rates don't cover unreported theft (what's the point of reporting theft if you know nothing will be done about it, or worse, get sued for it?) or are tweaked to take into account the decriminalized theft laws.

That's not to say that Walgreens' business model doesn't have problems, but I get the feeling that the city is really trying to cover for a more serious problem.
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Re: Walgreens Closures Continue in San Francisco

Post by storewanderer »

Alpha8472 wrote: October 15th, 2021, 5:03 pm The problem is not just theft. The problem is that Walgreens has the highest prices and worst selection of items. The prices are so high that it is like price gouging. Ever since the corporate office has been doing the merchandising, there has been less and less appeal to the stores. They used to have souvenirs and really good things to buy. Now it is an awful place to shop at.

There are other drugstores in the city that have a better selection of items and lower prices.

The mayor and some of the city supervisors say that the reasons for closing the stores is not theft. The data shows that theft rates are down from even before the pandemic in 2019. Walgreens had managed to drive away their customers by high prices and awful stores. The mayor and supervisors say that the Walgreens' explanation of theft is painting the city of San Francisco as lawless. The news story is making headlines across the country and is discouraging tourism to the city. The mayor believes that Walgreens had planned to close and consolidate stores anyway.

San Francisco is still a very nice place to visit and aside from the worst neighborhoods the city has a vibrant retail shopping scene.
Walgreens has a very radical range price scale going and I can't make much sense of how they decide what item is what price in what store. Overall I find Walgreens pricing, even at its worst, to be better than CVS. I still find Rite Aid's pricing to be better than both, but I know Rite Aid has a higher price scale in the larger areas (Sacramento, bay area) than what I see in the rural stores I go to.

The mayor is correct that Walgreens has had a long-term plan to close and consolidate stores in San Francisco but she is either lying outright or is a bit out of date with the news there. They wanted to get rid of the non-pharmacy stores and also the stores that were right across the street from another store- that was their consolidation plan, and they completed it years ago. These closures are due to the out of control theft (or the chain's inability to control the theft). Whatever or whoever one of us feels should be blamed for why it is happening for it the net result is still the same- a closed store.
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