You seem to assume that Rite-Aids closing make a big difference in NYC. They don't. I took a look at the number of drug stores in Washington Heights, arguably one of the lower income areas where they've closed stores--there are still a couple Duane Reades and about 10 independents.storewanderer wrote: ↑November 15th, 2022, 11:47 pmThat's one of the perks of living in a "good" big city. You get to have everything at your doorstep, almost literally. NYC is great for that. Chicago, San Francisco, etc. also great. St. Louis, not so much.BillyGr wrote: ↑November 4th, 2022, 1:45 pm
Not quite sure that it makes as much difference as it sounds like - people in NYC seem to think everything needs to be within a couple blocks of where they live. This person most likely still has more stores to choose from than anyone in any area that is not a huge city.
The mindset of these city dwellers needs to change. In the old days when they did have to go to the stores to buy everything, there was such a density of population that there was enough demand to have "everything" within a couple blocks of where they live. Now, thanks to the city dwellers embrace of Amazon and various other delivery services, demand from local stores on their block has fallen and these stores can no longer make it. There has always been theft in big city stores (perhaps not as much as there is now) but the problem now is there are too few paying customers to subsidize this theft. So now they are going to have to settle for needing to go 4 blocks instead of 2 blocks to buy that low margin bag of chips or high margin but still cheap bottle of aspirin, supporting their nearby drug store with a $6 transaction, that they need immediately. Meanwhile they are waiting at home for their order of higher margin OTC products, higher margin beauty products, and dental goods to arrive from Amazon and just cost the drugstore down the block $75+ of sales that week.
I also think these big city retailers did this in a way also in they typically priced big city stores higher than suburb stores and had a lesser selection of products in big city stores (space constraints). So for customers when they can order online and get stuff shipped FREE, a larger selection of items, and lower retail prices, of course the customers will move to online ordering.
Looking at articles on the closures, I also was reminded that before COVID, Walgreen was continuing to open new stores in NYC even after they bought Duane Reade and CVS was undertaking a large expansion at the same time. Both chains have closed stores in the city more recently but proportionately no where near the numbers of Rite Aids. You can walk through Chelsea, where Rite Aid closed two stores and easily pass multiple Duane Reades. The market was overbuilt and it looks like Rite Aid was the loser rather than the two better capitalized chains. It's also worth recalling that even before the consolidation of chains, many places including large metros, one or two chains dominated. NYC is unique in that it still has a large number of indies that have held on through decades of all this which created an even more unusual environment for chains and, again, make it difficult for the weakest to survive. Duane Reade aside, Walgreen has a lot of experience with urban locations in other places like Chicago and CVS has picked-up experience via chains like Peoples which had saturated DC. That reminds me--of the 6 CVS locations within walking distance from me (2 open 24 hours), only 1 has closed and that's because it was consolidated with a store a couple blocks away. The 2 Walgreens (both former Rite Aids) are doing fine, even the one that has CVS within a couple blocks in 2 directions.
As for "expectations", it's not just drug stores where perhaps your opinions are at odds with what's actually happening. There actually are new kinds of retailers entering urban areas. The most notable are new stores that fill the gap between convenience stores and super markets, with varying ranges of prepared food, fresh made items and groceries. These include the Foxtrot chain from Chicago which has entered DC and Boston will enter soon enter NYC. They also have entered Dallas, so they assume they can do denser parts of sprawlburgs. Foxtrot includes delivery and is a relatively upscale operation. DC also has Streets which is a locally grown store similar to Foxtrot---less upscale and w/o delivery---that has been expanding recently and did ok during COVID. Streets has many items where they are competitive with regular chains. In addition, DC has the local Union Kitchen chain which focuses on local products which has multiple city locations. They seem to be doing ok despite labor relations problems. These stores seem to carve out their own niches---one Streets is a couple blocks from Trader Joe's and less than a block from 7-11 and doesn't seem to have had much effect on TJs or 7-11 which predated them.