Bi-Mart / Walgreen's

[storewanderer]

Many Bi-Mart Stores have a little window on the sidewalk that you can use for pharmacy services so you do not have to enter the store.

While customers will be disappointed by the pharmacy sales to Walgreens, I think they will continue to shop at Bi-Mart for other products.

[Super S]

Many Bi-Mart Stores have a little window on the sidewalk that you can use for pharmacy services so you do not have to enter the store.

While customers will be disappointed by the pharmacy sales to Walgreens, I think they will continue to shop at Bi-Mart for other products.

Will Walgreens keep those windows? It's not a feature you see on their standalone stores, and the Bi-Mart locations which already have dropped the pharmacy have bricked in many of those windows already.

[bryceleinan]

If I had to take a stab at what pharmacies would remain Walgreens going forward, here are a few:

Brookings (only other chains are Fred Meyer and Rite Aid)
Coos Bay (there is a Walgreens in North Bend, a ways away from the Coos Bay store)
La Pine (there is an independent down the street, but no other chains. This and Winston are among the busiest stores)
Klamath Falls (no Walgreens in town, however, Fred Meyer and Rite Aid are nearby)
Winston (closest Walgreens is in Roseburg)
Florence (no Walgreens in town, has a Rite Aid and Fred Meyer)
Madras (Rite Aid and Safeway?)

There are others I am probably missing in Idaho and Washington... maybe places like Star / Kuna?

[Alpha8472]

Pharmacy windows to the outside are just asking for people to rob the pharmacy. Walgreens even closes the metal shutters on their interior pharmacy windows when they are short staffed.

[BillyGr]

Pharmacy windows to the outside are just asking for people to rob the pharmacy. Walgreens even closes the metal shutters on their interior pharmacy windows when they are short staffed.

Why would they be any worse as a walk up than any of the chains that have windows for drive thru? Those can be (unlike food places) big enough for someone to easily get through, if they want to (and I know they must lock or have covers in off hours, not sure about during business hours though).

[Alpha8472]

Bi-Mart is the only pharmacy that I know of that has walk up windows where they have to open up the window so that they can talk to you. This is the worst design. Someone can then put a gun to the employee's face. There is no speaker or phone. Then they also have to open up the window to take your cash or credit card payment. At Walgreens, they have a sealed window and a drawer or tube system to pass the payment or prescriptions.

If they seal the window and install a drawer and speaker of course they can keep the window.

[babs]

Bi-Mart is the only pharmacy that I know of that has walk up windows where they have to open up the window so that they can talk to you. This is the worst design. Someone can then put a gun to the employees face. There is no speaker or phone. Then they also have to open up the window to take your cash or credit card payment. At Walgreens, they have a sealed window and a drawer or tube system to pass the payment or prescriptions.

If they seal the window and install a drawer and speaker of course they can keep the window.

Fred Meyer has several stores with a pharmacy walk up window and those have a secure drawer and a microphone so it's hard well secured against a holdup.

[storewanderer]

Bi-Mart is the only pharmacy that I know of that has walk up windows where they have to open up the window so that they can talk to you. This is the worst design. Someone can then put a gun to the employee's face. There is no speaker or phone. Then they also have to open up the window to take your cash or credit card payment. At Walgreens, they have a sealed window and a drawer or tube system to pass the payment or prescriptions.

If they seal the window and install a drawer and speaker of course they can keep the window.

CVS built 2 stores in Reno shortly after buying Sav-On, but right before buying Longs, and these two stores have a window they can open at drive through (like a fast food restaurant) but then have the usual drawer/microphone arrangement as well. The default is to use the drawer/microphone.

[storewanderer]

If I had to take a stab at what pharmacies would remain Walgreens going forward, here are a few:

Brookings (only other chains are Fred Meyer and Rite Aid)
Coos Bay (there is a Walgreens in North Bend, a ways away from the Coos Bay store)
La Pine (there is an independent down the street, but no other chains. This and Winston are among the busiest stores)
Klamath Falls (no Walgreens in town, however, Fred Meyer and Rite Aid are nearby)
Winston (closest Walgreens is in Roseburg)
Florence (no Walgreens in town, has a Rite Aid and Fred Meyer)
Madras (Rite Aid and Safeway?)

There are others I am probably missing in Idaho and Washington... maybe places like Star / Kuna?

My observation of Walgreens in rural areas has been they simply do not perform well. There is something about Walgreens, that just does not mesh in the rural communities. Rite Aid does well in rural communities and CVS seems to hold its own. Every rural Walgreens I know of is a very low volume store with many SKUs removed from front store, cardboard boxes on the shelves covering where merchandise used to be, short pharmacy hours, and in some cases even short store hours. Back in the 00's, when Walgreens stopped its aggressive new build store program, was toward the end phase of the program when they were going to keep building in rural communities. They started with the 10-15k population towns and the results for so many of those stores were so bad when they opened that was when they shelved the aggressive open a new store every 12 hours or whatever it was program because they knew better than to push into the 5k-10k population towns after seeing how warmly (not) they were received in the 10-15k population towns. Of course back then they had no liquor which in itself probably made a large segment of customers determine the store was simply not one that met their needs.

I am rather surprised Walgreens is even interested in having a pharmacy in these remote locations.

[Super S]

If I had to take a stab at what pharmacies would remain Walgreens going forward, here are a few:

Brookings (only other chains are Fred Meyer and Rite Aid)
Coos Bay (there is a Walgreens in North Bend, a ways away from the Coos Bay store)
La Pine (there is an independent down the street, but no other chains. This and Winston are among the busiest stores)
Klamath Falls (no Walgreens in town, however, Fred Meyer and Rite Aid are nearby)
Winston (closest Walgreens is in Roseburg)
Florence (no Walgreens in town, has a Rite Aid and Fred Meyer)
Madras (Rite Aid and Safeway?)

There are others I am probably missing in Idaho and Washington... maybe places like Star / Kuna?

My observation of Walgreens in rural areas has been they simply do not perform well. There is something about Walgreens, that just does not mesh in the rural communities. Rite Aid does well in rural communities and CVS seems to hold its own. Every rural Walgreens I know of is a very low volume store with many SKUs removed from front store, cardboard boxes on the shelves covering where merchandise used to be, short pharmacy hours, and in some cases even short store hours. Back in the 00's, when Walgreens stopped its aggressive new build store program, was toward the end phase of the program when they were going to keep building in rural communities. They started with the 10-15k population towns and the results for so many of those stores were so bad when they opened that was when they shelved the aggressive open a new store every 12 hours or whatever it was program because they knew better than to push into the 5k-10k population towns after seeing how warmly (not) they were received in the 10-15k population towns. Of course back then they had no liquor which in itself probably made a large segment of customers determine the store was simply not one that met their needs.

I am rather surprised Walgreens is even interested in having a pharmacy in these remote locations.

Keep in mind that CVS has very few standalone stores in the Pacific Northwest. In most areas CVS is the pharmacy inside Target, and Target doesn't have many stores in rural areas, and does not operate on the coast. Walgreens might do ok with this.