Rite Aid closing at least 63 stores

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Re: Rite Aid closing at least 63 stores

Post by reymann »

i dunno how much longer the brick and mortar drug store will stick around at this point. walgreeens & cvs are shedding stores right now as the pharmacy model is becoming more of a delivery/grab & go. maybe the future of the drug store industry is gonna be grab & go with the basics for OTC medicine and mostly online delivery. what i think happens to rite aid is gonna be liquidation at some point and spinning off thrifty ice cream.
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Re: Rite Aid closing at least 63 stores

Post by storewanderer »

reymann wrote: September 25th, 2022, 6:29 pm i dunno how much longer the brick and mortar drug store will stick around at this point. walgreeens & cvs are shedding stores right now as the pharmacy model is becoming more of a delivery/grab & go. maybe the future of the drug store industry is gonna be grab & go with the basics for OTC medicine and mostly online delivery. what i think happens to rite aid is gonna be liquidation at some point and spinning off thrifty ice cream.
I think customers have a terrible opinion of these large drug store chains, especially Walgreens and CVS. These chains need to somehow do something to get their pharmacy operations under control so people quit having such negative experiences with them. And it isn't just customers, it is employees too. Someone should try to find out how many Save Mart Pharmacy employees joined Walgreens. I won't go any further on that topic without hard evidence. But Rite Aid has sure hired more pharmacy staff in the past six weeks...

I still think Rite Aid is better... I've always thought Rite Aid is better... but Rite Aid can't make any money. It is somewhat of a miracle Rite Aid has survived as long as it has. Rite Aid's assets in CA, WA, PA, and MI should be quite valuable, certainly not something I'd expect to see liquidated, as they continue to have a high store concentration in those states.
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Re: Rite Aid closing at least 63 stores

Post by norcalriteaidclerk »

storewanderer wrote:
reymann wrote: September 25th, 2022, 6:29 pm i dunno how much longer the brick and mortar drug store will stick around at this point. walgreeens & cvs are shedding stores right now as the pharmacy model is becoming more of a delivery/grab & go. maybe the future of the drug store industry is gonna be grab & go with the basics for OTC medicine and mostly online delivery. what i think happens to rite aid is gonna be liquidation at some point and spinning off thrifty ice cream.
I think customers have a terrible opinion of these large drug store chains, especially Walgreens and CVS. These chains need to somehow do something to get their pharmacy operations under control so people quit having such negative experiences with them. And it isn't just customers, it is employees too. Someone should try to find out how many Save Mart Pharmacy employees joined Walgreens. I won't go any further on that topic without hard evidence. But Rite Aid has sure hired more pharmacy staff in the past six weeks...

I still think Rite Aid is better... I've always thought Rite Aid is better... but Rite Aid can't make any money. It is somewhat of a miracle Rite Aid has survived as long as it has. Rite Aid's assets in CA, WA, PA, and MI should be quite valuable, certainly not something I'd expect to see liquidated, as they continue to have a high store concentration in those states.
Ohio is also a strong state for RAD (despite being absent from Cincinnati and Columbus),as well as Oregon (though the population is smaller than the bordering states of California and Washington).The diluted presence in the Atlantic states(other than their home state if Pennsylvania) is peculiar though.

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Re: Rite Aid closing at least 63 stores

Post by storewanderer »

norcalriteaidclerk wrote: September 26th, 2022, 11:59 pm Ohio is also a strong state for RAD (despite being absent from Cincinnati and Columbus),as well as Oregon (though the population is smaller than the bordering states of California and Washington).The diluted presence in the Atlantic states(other than their home state if Pennsylvania) is peculiar though.

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My observations of Rite Aid Stores in OR is that they just don't seem to be doing much sales volume. I don't think Walgreens is necessarily doing any better and CVS only has a few freestanding stores. I think as many OR Safeways have pharmacy and the OR Fred Meyers have pharmacy and both of them are running very busy pharmacies, the drugstores have become sort of redundant in OR. Roughly speaking I think Payless ran a strategy in OR of having few stores but those stores being high volume. Rite Aid killed volume in the late 90's but did not expand store count to have a higher count of lower volume stores. WA is a little different since many of those Rite Aids are former Pay N Save (so Thrifty size) type units and were not terribly high volume in the first place even when they had the Payless banner. My general opinion of Rite Aid West if you look at it is the Thrifty assets have been successful for them. The Payless assets have been questionable- some good stores scattered around CA/OR/WA; ID appears to be a solid market but they did try to sell that to Walgreens; UT was clearly a poor market and CO was poor historically but I think did better in recent years. But ID/UT/CO while was under Payless the majority of stores were unremodeled Oscos up until the Wellness program and at that point most if not all of CO/ID got remodeled but UT only had a few remodels. Martin Grass attempted to do a fairly aggressive expansion program of RA1s in CO and the expansion was not successful; they closed after a very short time period in Colorado Springs/Monument (had no Payless presence), and also had a number of failures around Denver (some of those were unremodeled Oscos though). Similar to Martin Grass attempt to expand RA1s into Nevada, though those stores lasted much longer than Colorado Springs did. Las Vegas must have been a terrible market or just saturated by a very high Sav-On count and an ever-expanding Walgreens as not many of those RA1s continued as drugstores (Mesquite is a Walgreens now; though 2 in Reno, 1 in Sun Valley, 1 in Fallon, 1 in Carson City are now CVS).

I think some store swap arrangement led to the situation Rite Aid has in OH, but I do not recall the details. I think it may have involved CVS in the late 90's.
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Re: Rite Aid closing at least 63 stores

Post by bryceleinan »

storewanderer wrote: September 27th, 2022, 12:18 am
norcalriteaidclerk wrote: September 26th, 2022, 11:59 pm Ohio is also a strong state for RAD (despite being absent from Cincinnati and Columbus),as well as Oregon (though the population is smaller than the bordering states of California and Washington).The diluted presence in the Atlantic states(other than their home state if Pennsylvania) is peculiar though.

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My observations of Rite Aid Stores in OR is that they just don't seem to be doing much sales volume. I don't think Walgreens is necessarily doing any better and CVS only has a few freestanding stores. I think as many OR Safeways have pharmacy and the OR Fred Meyers have pharmacy and both of them are running very busy pharmacies, the drugstores have become sort of redundant in OR. Roughly speaking I think Payless ran a strategy in OR of having few stores but those stores being high volume. Rite Aid killed volume in the late 90's but did not expand store count to have a higher count of lower volume stores. WA is a little different since many of those Rite Aids are former Pay N Save (so Thrifty size) type units and were not terribly high volume in the first place even when they had the Payless banner. My general opinion of Rite Aid West if you look at it is the Thrifty assets have been successful for them. The Payless assets have been questionable- some good stores scattered around CA/OR/WA; ID appears to be a solid market but they did try to sell that to Walgreens; UT was clearly a poor market and CO was poor historically but I think did better in recent years. But ID/UT/CO while was under Payless the majority of stores were unremodeled Oscos up until the Wellness program and at that point most if not all of CO/ID got remodeled but UT only had a few remodels. Martin Grass attempted to do a fairly aggressive expansion program of RA1s in CO and the expansion was not successful; they closed after a very short time period in Colorado Springs/Monument (had no Payless presence), and also had a number of failures around Denver (some of those were unremodeled Oscos though). Similar to Martin Grass attempt to expand RA1s into Nevada, though those stores lasted much longer than Colorado Springs did. Las Vegas must have been a terrible market or just saturated by a very high Sav-On count and an ever-expanding Walgreens as not many of those RA1s continued as drugstores (Mesquite is a Walgreens now; though 2 in Reno, 1 in Sun Valley, 1 in Fallon, 1 in Carson City are now CVS).

I think some store swap arrangement led to the situation Rite Aid has in OH, but I do not recall the details. I think it may have involved CVS in the late 90's.
I can speak for Coos Bay / North Bend, as it and Newberg are the markets I’m most familiar with owing to family ties there. In CB/NB, Payless had two stores - one in downtown Coos Bay (now Rife’s Furniture) and in North Bend at Pony Village Mall (now Harbor Freight, former JCPenney after Payless.)

Both of the Payless stores were always busy when I was a kid, at the time, they were the only pharmacies other than a couple of independents and Fred Meyer (opened in 71, 12 years before I was born.)

I don’t recall if the old Safeway in Coos Bay (now Bi-Mart) or the one in North Bend (now Big 5 and Dollar Tree) had pharmacies in their old stores. Anyway, Payless closed both their legacy locations around the same time and transferred to the current-day Rite Aid building at Broadway and Virginia. Rite Aid never seemed to have the Payless feel to it as far as volume.

In that market, Safeway is the absolute busiest pharmacy, especially North Bend. It used to be Bi-Mart before they sold to Wags, but no more. Fred Meyer is also busy in Coos Bay with a Safeway across the street in the former Ray’s.

In Newberg, Safeway and Fred Meyer slay that pharmacy market. Low volume RAD closed in the last couple of years. I’ve never been in the Newberg Walgreens, so no idea how it does.
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Re: Rite Aid closing at least 63 stores

Post by buckguy »

storewanderer wrote: September 27th, 2022, 12:18 am
norcalriteaidclerk wrote: September 26th, 2022, 11:59 pm Ohio is also a strong state for RAD (despite being absent from Cincinnati and Columbus),as well as Oregon (though the population is smaller than the bordering states of California and Washington).The diluted presence in the Atlantic states(other than their home state if Pennsylvania) is peculiar though.

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I think some store swap arrangement led to the situation Rite Aid has in OH, but I do not recall the details. I think it may have involved CVS in the late 90's.
[/quote]

Rite-Aid bought Lane (dominant in Toledo/NW Ohio and in areas away from Cleveland in NE Ohio under the Schuman banner) and Gray Drug (strong presence in Cleveland, 2nd or 3rd tier elsewhere in Ohio). The Cincinnati stores went to Walgreen; Walgreen has been a major player there for decades and Gray had a weak presence. Walgreen also got the stores in Columbus where Gray also was a minor factor. I haven't been to a NW Ohio Rite-Aid in a long time, but the ones I've visited in NE Ohio have seemed to be very well kept but don't seem to have a lot of customers.
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Re: Rite Aid closing at least 63 stores

Post by norcalriteaidclerk »

The Nevada RAD presence was systematically reduced in phases:in a 2007 asset exchange that saw both chains exit non-strategic markets,all of the northern Nevada RAD locations (save for gardnerville which still accounts for the lone RAD presence in the silver state)were swapped to Long's for various assets in the Pacific Northwest (several locations as well as file buys for a couple locations that weren't retained as going concerns)plus 900 Sunrise in Roseville that only lasted a few years as Long's(one of their first drive thru locations)and didn't do squat as one.The following year, RAD exited Vegas where no new stores had opened since 1999(none ever even saw customer world decor).Walgreens bought the files for the majority of the locations,most if not all ceasing to exist as drugstores (several became short-lived F&E locations while one is now a Dollar General Market).

In respect to Cincinnati and Columbus,at least one blue awning RA-1 unit in the latter is known to be a CVS now(and has been for years)with the blue awning obviously repainted red.

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Re: Rite Aid closing at least 63 stores

Post by storewanderer »

norcalriteaidclerk wrote: September 27th, 2022, 12:21 pm The Nevada RAD presence was systematically reduced in phases:in a 2007 asset exchange that saw both chains exit non-strategic markets,all of the northern Nevada RAD locations (save for gardnerville which still accounts for the lone RAD presence in the silver state)were swapped to Long's for various assets in the Pacific Northwest (several locations as well as file buys for a couple locations that weren't retained as going concerns)plus 900 Sunrise in Roseville that only lasted a few years as Long's(one of their first drive thru locations)and didn't do squat as one.The following year, RAD exited Vegas where no new stores had opened since 1999(none ever even saw customer world decor).Walgreens bought the files for the majority of the locations,most if not all ceasing to exist as drugstores (several became short-lived F&E locations while one is now a Dollar General Market).

In respect to Cincinnati and Columbus,at least one blue awning RA-1 unit in the latter is known to be a CVS now(and has been for years)with the blue awning obviously repainted red.

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There was a newer Rite Aid in Las Vegas at 150 E. Harmon that may have closed before the market exit. Not sure if it was a full store or what. But it was a newer location. My understanding was the Las Vegas Stores were losing money due to low sales volume and theft issues. The Reno Stores were a bit different and as a whole not run overly well (they were in an OR district for some reason something about not wanting to mix union and non union stores; they transferred in managers from CA to open the stores but some did not stay long so some stores that opened well got crushed but they opened each store with 3 Assistant Managers so those were ultimately promoted to store managers and some of them made it all the way to CVS) but opened as the company was having serious problems. Given the locations a couple of these stores had pretty slow sales (the one at S. Virginia/Huffaker was on the verge of being closed multiple times but they always found a reason to keep it; none of the others were in danger of closure under Rite Aid). They also had higher prices than the Tahoe/rural stores (same prices as the Sacramento Stores). They had a site in Reno at the intersection of Plumas/Moana (SE corner) that was moving through approvals not built on due to the company's problems coming to light but did build 6 other stores in a short time period.

Thrifty exited Nevada in the early 90's with about 30 stores (4 in Reno the rest in Las Vegas), supposedly due to failed negotiations with a large insurance customer, and Payless had an odd scattered presence at the time of the late 90's merger (Elko, Gardnerville, and about 12 stores around Las Vegas). Gardnerville received the Customer World remodel at the time when Rite Aid was exiting the rest of Nevada. Someone with some pull wanted that store kept. Some real tricks allowed Longs/CVS to get so many drugstores in Reno area without having to divest anything. Sort of like the FTC turned a largely blind eye to Save Mart buying up so many competitors in the central valley over the years.
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Re: Rite Aid closing at least 63 stores

Post by norcalriteaidclerk »

It will be interesting return-to-work Thursday as the fy2023q2 earnings call takes place as most West coasters like myself will still be sound asleep.Still on adjusted hours but we did take in several transfers(mostly management)from a recently closed store across the county line(closed for just over a couple weeks)which is fortuitous given that the existing holdover management employee that we had(a supervisor who shotgun transferred from Cameron Park upon its closure)jumped ship a week and a half ago(some new transfers began easing in as early as 3-4 weeks ago)and one supervisor that we just took in is in the process of disengaging from RAD (she returned to her old job at Safeway,but wants to stay on on a reduced schedule basis). I'm hoping for good news on the quarterly financial judgment,but apparently the California closures aren't quite slowing down at least in SoCal:I'm hearing from redditors that San Diego ECB certainly isn't the only new closure in the southland though employees posting on the Rite Aid reddit are generally being tight lipped on the precise locations for a number of reasons and understandably so(no firm word on the status of palm desert 111 which was at the center of a viral and cryptic video posted on Twitter by a customer/bystander).

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Re: Rite Aid closing at least 63 stores

Post by storewanderer »

The closure of 900 Sunrise definitely needed to happen, I'm not sure why it stayed open as long as it did. At least the prescriptions got transferred to Roseville Square location and not sold. I suspect it didn't have significant theft issues though maybe shrink due to spoilage due to lack of volume caused issues (easy for the 1-2 customers in there at any given time to be watched by the 2-3 employees in there at any given time). And every time I went into that store was daytime, usually mid-early afternoon. That was one of the stores I'd been expecting to close for years. It was never stocked particularly well and just always had a dead vibe. I think they absorbed a couple of independent pharmacies into it over the years in an effort to build some traffic but it just never worked out.

Hopefully this is the end of the closures in NorCal. Another store that looks somewhat questionable to me is Fair Lane in Placerville. When Safeway moved out of there, that really hurt that shopping center; Big Lots just doesn't generate the traffic.
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