Holiday Hours Expanding

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Alpha8472
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Re: Holiday Hours Expanding

Post by Alpha8472 »

I would assume with the Omicron variant, people are staying home. Perhaps more people are doing the online ordering thing now.

I do know that pharmacies are busier than ever. The hottest thing this year are at-home COVID tests. It is the number one seller and the main source of phone calls to pharmacies. Strangely, drugstores are not expanding hours. They are still keeping regular hours.
storewanderer
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Re: Holiday Hours Expanding

Post by storewanderer »

Alpha8472 wrote: December 24th, 2021, 12:31 am I would assume with the Omicron variant, people are staying home. Perhaps more people are doing the online ordering thing now.

I do know that pharmacies are busier than ever. The hottest thing this year are at-home COVID tests. It is the number one seller and the main source of phone calls to pharmacies. Strangely, drugstores are not expanding hours. They are still keeping regular hours.
One Walgreens I went to had a six foot portion of the seasonal aisle filled to the brim with COVID tests. I went back to the same store a couple days later and they were gone, I was told they all sold. Sales should be going through the roof for these stores.

CVS locations seem to have them in stock almost every time I go in. Some are on a shelf self serve, some have them behind the counter. The CVS locations that ship CVS.com orders to home receive hundreds or thousands of these tests at a time and so far the one I have found has never been out of stock.

I have yet to see any COVID tests at Wal Mart. I heard they had a better price than 23.99. Same for the grocery chains and Target- haven't seen any.
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Re: Holiday Hours Expanding

Post by ClownLoach »

storewanderer wrote: December 24th, 2021, 1:27 am
Alpha8472 wrote: December 24th, 2021, 12:31 am I would assume with the Omicron variant, people are staying home. Perhaps more people are doing the online ordering thing now.

I do know that pharmacies are busier than ever. The hottest thing this year are at-home COVID tests. It is the number one seller and the main source of phone calls to pharmacies. Strangely, drugstores are not expanding hours. They are still keeping regular hours.
One Walgreens I went to had a six foot portion of the seasonal aisle filled to the brim with COVID tests. I went back to the same store a couple days later and they were gone, I was told they all sold. Sales should be going through the roof for these stores.

CVS locations seem to have them in stock almost every time I go in. Some are on a shelf self serve, some have them behind the counter. The CVS locations that ship CVS.com orders to home receive hundreds or thousands of these tests at a time and so far the one I have found has never been out of stock.

I have yet to see any COVID tests at Wal Mart. I heard they had a better price than 23.99. Same for the grocery chains and Target- haven't seen any.
I have seen the two pack of tests for an odd price of 11.54 at Sam's Club a couple weeks ago but I'm sure they're sold out now. I think Walmart was the same price. This was the Abbott brand test which is probably more reliable than the sudden startups making random test kits in China - many of those have 1 star reviews on Amazon as they frequently are missing parts or they don't work.

Interesting that Walmart and the other big pharmacy and grocery chains supposedly all agreed with the White House to sell these kits at wholesale cost. Even as a break even item it gets customers in the door and generates comp sales so it's a win for the retailer. If it's $11.54 at Sam's that sounds about right for cost for a kit with a couple tubes, chemicals, and swabs that was probably shipped via air freight. $23.99 doesn't sound like cost. They also all have very short expiration dates, usually only 60 to 90 days from manufacture. I wonder if the drugstores and others didn't follow through with their promise and decided to mark them up which has resulted in the sudden shortage and announcement that these will be given out free by the government now in short order? (The US Government has 500 million on order due in next two weeks or so)

Also interesting when you think about the fact that with a big push to at home testing there will become a serious void of data about the status of the pandemic (unless the at home kits are only used in conjunction with apps or services that some offer to give you a "negative test passport" or QR code - some of those have a video conference link where you show them the box and your ID, do the test in front of them, show them its negative and they send you a passport or code). With how many of these are going out the doors at the drugstores I think we already have no real valid data as to the size and scope of the pandemic anymore.
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Re: Holiday Hours Expanding

Post by storewanderer »

ClownLoach wrote: December 24th, 2021, 11:48 am
I have seen the two pack of tests for an odd price of 11.54 at Sam's Club a couple weeks ago but I'm sure they're sold out now. I think Walmart was the same price. This was the Abbott brand test which is probably more reliable than the sudden startups making random test kits in China - many of those have 1 star reviews on Amazon as they frequently are missing parts or they don't work.

Interesting that Walmart and the other big pharmacy and grocery chains supposedly all agreed with the White House to sell these kits at wholesale cost. Even as a break even item it gets customers in the door and generates comp sales so it's a win for the retailer. If it's $11.54 at Sam's that sounds about right for cost for a kit with a couple tubes, chemicals, and swabs that was probably shipped via air freight. $23.99 doesn't sound like cost. They also all have very short expiration dates, usually only 60 to 90 days from manufacture. I wonder if the drugstores and others didn't follow through with their promise and decided to mark them up which has resulted in the sudden shortage and announcement that these will be given out free by the government now in short order? (The US Government has 500 million on order due in next two weeks or so)

If $23.99 isn't cost how are they getting away with charging that price? I too thought the $23.99 sounded a bit steep. If Sam's is selling them for $11.54 the straight wholesale cost is probably right around $10.

If that 500 million test kits comes into the supply chain in the next two weeks at no cost these drugstores are going to have to mark down their kits. Then again people may find it easier to just go buy the test kit, than order and wait for one. I wonder if the deal to sell the test kit "at cost" goes out the window now that they will be distributed free. Maybe for the few folks who have to buy them at a drugstore, the cost can go even higher (why not 49.99?). I'd love to know what "cost" is.

Drugstores mark private label OTC and various generic drugs exponentially in price. Even if these COVID kits only cost them $5 to bring in, they are not taking their typical drug mark up on them at the 23.99 price point.
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