CVS to close 900 stores

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Re: CVS to close 900 stores

Post by norcalriteaidclerk »

It would be interesting if Sacramento seems any CVS closures at all.Only one local closure has occurred since they acquired Long's drugs(6045 Madison was merged with 5420 Dewey before the conversions began)and the latter had quite a few coverage holes in mature areas of town that CVS has only gotten to filling within the past decade.For all we know,this could be a similar situation to the one with Rite Aid in San Diego county (just two closures countywide) and Bakersfield (perhaps the biggest area of the state that hasn't seen a single RAD closure yet).Of course Bay area closures were obviously expected as they have a higher CVS density than in the capital region.

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Re: CVS to close 900 stores

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norcalriteaidclerk wrote: August 12th, 2022, 7:45 pm It would be interesting if Sacramento seems any CVS closures at all.Only one local closure has occurred since they acquired Long's drugs(6045 Madison was merged with 5420 Dewey before the conversions began)and the latter had quite a few coverage holes in mature areas of town that CVS has only gotten to filling within the past decade.For all we know,this could be a similar situation to the one with Rite Aid in San Diego county (just two closures countywide) and Bakersfield (perhaps the biggest area of the state that hasn't seen a single RAD closure yet).Of course Bay area closures were obviously expected as they have a higher CVS density than in the capital region.

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CVS seems healthy in Sacramento. The locations I've gone into have pretty good traffic and are generally well kept and well stocked. Even some of those former Payless units they took over are in surprisingly good shape (for a CVS). Walgreens seems very iffy; some locations obviously have good traffic, but others are clearly struggling and have little merchandise. There have been a number of store closures for some reason. I thought Rite Aid was pretty healthy in Sacramento (a lot of the closures over the years seemed like redundant locations) but after the recent closure activity where they have exited multiple 5-mile radiuses, I am really second guessing my assessment on that front. If we saw a couple new store announcements it would go a long ways, but we don't seem to be seeing that. Rio Linda has been a good new store; I'm not sure how some of the older new stores like Olivehurst and Magalia have done but generally speaking I do think there is potential for new stores to be opened by Rite Aid in multiple spots if they wanted to do it (and could staff them).
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Re: CVS to close 900 stores

Post by mburb1981 »

More late news...

CVS closed a store in Fayetteville, Tennessee on February 24. This was a really old location that lacked a drive-thru. The next closest CVS stores are in the nearby towns of Tullahoma, Pulaski, Shelbyville, and Winchester, plus a few in the Huntsville, Alabama area.

A CVS in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina shut down in March, nearly a year after it reopened from extensive renovations after it was severely damaged during riots in Raleigh back in May 2020.
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Re: CVS to close 900 stores

Post by norcalriteaidclerk »

storewanderer wrote:
norcalriteaidclerk wrote: August 12th, 2022, 7:45 pm It would be interesting if Sacramento seems any CVS closures at all.Only one local closure has occurred since they acquired Long's drugs(6045 Madison was merged with 5420 Dewey before the conversions began)and the latter had quite a few coverage holes in mature areas of town that CVS has only gotten to filling within the past decade.For all we know,this could be a similar situation to the one with Rite Aid in San Diego county (just two closures countywide) and Bakersfield (perhaps the biggest area of the state that hasn't seen a single RAD closure yet).Of course Bay area closures were obviously expected as they have a higher CVS density than in the capital region.

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CVS seems healthy in Sacramento. The locations I've gone into have pretty good traffic and are generally well kept and well stocked. Even some of those former Payless units they took over are in surprisingly good shape (for a CVS). Walgreens seems very iffy; some locations obviously have good traffic, but others are clearly struggling and have little merchandise. There have been a number of store closures for some reason. I thought Rite Aid was pretty healthy in Sacramento (a lot of the closures over the years seemed like redundant locations) but after the recent closure activity where they have exited multiple 5-mile radiuses, I am really second guessing my assessment on that front. If we saw a couple new store announcements it would go a long ways, but we don't seem to be seeing that. Rio Linda has been a good new store; I'm not sure how some of the older new stores like Olivehurst and Magalia have done but generally speaking I do think there is potential for new stores to be opened by Rite Aid in multiple spots if they wanted to do it (and could staff them).
Another factor in this is that Long's was actually a relative latecomer to the Sacramento drugstore scene.Their first local stores opened in the northeast suburbs in the fall of 1975:6197 sunrise(since altered/expanded for a wal-market, CVS replaced this location with a freestanding store at 8101 greenback in March 2012) opened on October 2 of that year,with 4959 Marconi following suit six days later.Until the late 1980's/early 1990's,their growth rate in the market was relatively conservative in comparison to its competitors(maybe one new store every year on average).Only when outlying areas grew and Thrifty started contracting did Long's aggressively start playing catch-up with Payless.

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Re: CVS to close 900 stores

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norcalriteaidclerk wrote: August 15th, 2022, 7:40 pm

Another factor in this is that Long's was actually a relative latecomer to the Sacramento drugstore scene.Their first local stores opened in the northeast suburbs in the fall of 1975:6197 sunrise(since altered/expanded for a wal-market, CVS replaced this location with a freestanding store at 8101 greenback in March 2012) opened on October 2 of that year,with 4959 Marconi following suit six days later.Until the late 1980's/early 1990's,their growth rate in the market was relatively conservative in comparison to its competitors(maybe one new store every year on average).Only when outlying areas grew and Thrifty started contracting did Long's aggressively start playing catch-up with Payless.

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Longs very much liked the Reno market. They owned and operated the slot machines in their stores and many of the locations did very little sales volume but the slot machines made the stores worth having open. I believe they entered in the late 70's with a few new build stores, then made a big move in the early 80's with the purchase of 2 Payless Stores. In the late 80's Thrifty opened two new stores in the late 80's (closed around 1992 along with 2 other older locations). In the mid 90's Osco opened one store (10500 N. McCarran in Reno, closed and consolidated with Albertsons during the Albertsons Sav-On combo program) in Reno. Longs didn't grow at all Reno in the late 80's or mid 90's but in the late 90's they reopened the two closed 80's Thriftys, then in the early 00's they ramped things up first building 2 new stores (Damonte Ranch Pkwy Reno, Vista Blvd Sparks) then in the mid-late 00's they really ramped things up (took the Reno Rite Aids all RA1s, built new stores at Sparks-Disc (closed by CVS) and had finished but never opened new stores in downtown Reno, and on Wingfield Springs Pkwy in Sparks (never opened by CVS). The downtown Reno Longs sat finished and ready to open while a dispute arose with the city or gaming control or something regarding if Longs could put slot machines in the store or not, and Longs eventually lost that dispute, so they refused to open the store. CVS never opened it. It still sits empty, fixtured, and set up with Longs fixtures etc.


Longs also started growing in the Lake Tahoe market in the 00's. They had a long standing store in Truckee (late 70's), then moved into South Lake Tahoe in the mid 90's (current Grocery Outlet building) into an awkward building, ultimately opening two stores elsewhere in South Lake Tahoe and closing the awkward one (one in an old Smart & Final, the other in an old Office Depot). Longs also opened in Tahoe City in the 00's initially right next to Safeway with a "Longs Pharmacy" subleasing the space from Safeway. CVS opened a larger store elsewhere in the center and Safeway took its space and expanded its store there about 7 years ago. Longs also tried to build a store in Kings Beach but could never get permitting/approval, that lot now has a gas station under construction (think the drug store would have been a better fit).
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Re: CVS to close 900 stores

Post by Alpha8472 »

Why is CVS getting rid of liquor sales? Is it a health thing?
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Re: CVS to close 900 stores

Post by norcalriteaidclerk »

Alpha8472 wrote:Why is CVS getting rid of liquor sales? Is it a health thing?
So far it appears to be limited to their 'health hub' locations (see relevant thread).

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Re: CVS to close 900 stores

Post by arizonaguy »

Alpha8472 wrote: August 16th, 2022, 5:11 pm Why is CVS getting rid of liquor sales? Is it a health thing?
I'd imagine soda, candy, and chips might be next.
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Re: CVS to close 900 stores

Post by storewanderer »

arizonaguy wrote: August 16th, 2022, 7:01 pm
Alpha8472 wrote: August 16th, 2022, 5:11 pm Why is CVS getting rid of liquor sales? Is it a health thing?
I'd imagine soda, candy, and chips might be next.
I don't see that happening anytime soon.

I suspect they are losing liquor because it is not a profitable category for them anymore. It is possible in the case of these Health Hub Stores (where they massively cut SKUs of products) that they abbreviated the liquor mix down so low that people quit buying it there in the first place. You also have to deal with the various liquor laws, theft issues, employees who don't ID and get caught in a sting, etc. In the case of California where liquor cannot go through self checkout, and CVS wants to be 100% self checkout, it prevents the 100% self checkout from happening.

At the end of the day CVS should just downsize its stores to about 8,500 square feet. That is really all they need. Liquor by other "big" drugstore chains like Osco/Sav-On and Longs was used as a traffic driver. It helped sales in the big stores. It is long clear that CVS has no interest in driving sales in big stores, they just want to run like a small convenience type of operation. Low labor, low product mix, high pricing. They have the ongoing Extra Bucks program where you can keep getting free stuff every week and more Extra Bucks, which probably keeps them from having half of the items in the store expired, but if they shrink the stores small enough they won't need that anymore either.
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Re: CVS to close 900 stores

Post by mburb1981 »

The CVS at Jefferson and Dickerson on the east side of Detroit is closing September 15th. This store was an early 2000s location that is very close to a lot of apartments and is also blocks away from both the revitalizing Jefferson-Chalmers district and from a huge Chrysler assembly plant. However, it's also within a high-crime area (most infamously, the store's parking lot was the site of a 2007 murder). Prescriptions will be transferred to a CVS in Grosse Pointe.
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