Rite Aid closing at least 63 stores

[storewanderer]

I find it fascinating someone could get that Reddit shut down. If you go over to the Reddit for Target, Wal Mart, CVS, Walgreens, Kroger, there are all kinds of horror stories and complaints going around from employees, mocking of customers, mocking of management, photos, and other things far beyond what I ever saw on the Rite Aid reddit (or see on the Safeway reddit which is a very tame Reddit).

Those other chains mentioned are actually reasonably stable however.It is evident that 1200 Intrepid is running scared considering the fy2023q2 earnings debacle has triggered multiple pending shareholder class action lawsuits.

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I just hope things turn around. It is rumored to be a bad flu season. I know a lot of people who were sick during October. Sometimes this goes the other way too where a lot of people get sick early in the season and it hit entire households like wildfire (nobody tested for COVID, all assumed it was flu, all are vaccinated with COVID vaccine and some but not all with boosters) then it is more mild later as people already got it, or got an early reminder to be more careful during the winter.

It appears to me Rite Aid has quite a bit of holiday merchandise to sell through in the next eight weeks. They don't have long in my opinion but to be fair every retailer is in a mad rush today (literally today) to get all of the holiday set up.

[norcalriteaidclerk]

Political talking points aside(political policies can't be blamed for corporate troubles), NYC can't catch a break with RAD locations closing left and right and it's already November 2022.Without regard to politics,RAD isn't showing any interest at hiring asset protection agents that could make the difference between stores staying open or not.We don't see CVS or Walgreens/Duane reade mass close NYC locations because of shrink issues.

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[BillyGr]

I suspect the shopping cart issue can be addressed by putting plastic poles on the carts and not letting the carts out of the store. Definite inconvenience for customers buying large transactions, maybe they can pull up to the door and have one of the 2-3 employees on duty help get the items from the cart into their car. Otherwise they are probably going to lose the carts. I see the carts can be picked up within 30 days but after that are impounded.

Just use those things on the wheels that lock once you leave a certain area. That way, the customers can still take them to the parking lot, but no one will take them beyond, as they would become useless at that point.

[BillyGr]

Political talking points aside (political policies can't be blamed for corporate troubles), NYC can't catch a break with RAD locations closing left and right and its already November 2022.Without regard to politics, RAD isn't showing any interest at hiring asset protection agents that could make the difference between stores staying open or not. We don't see CVS or Walgreens/Duane Reade mass close NYC locations because of shrink issues.

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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.

[norcalriteaidclerk]

Trying not to think that we're being lulled into a false sense of security,but executives recently presented at some trade conference while Manhattan is officially down to 11 locations remaining compared to 27 at this point two years ago with as many as half the remaining locations there being threatened.Not to mention last truckload was somewhat paltry at least in respect to basic(non-seasonal) merchandise though we did get new security fixtures.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/rite-aid ... 00657.html

PHILADELPHIA, November 04, 2022--Rite Aid (NYSE: RAD) announced today that President and CEO Heyward Donigan and CFO Matt Schroeder will present at the Credit ...



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[storewanderer]

Trying not to think that we're being lulled into a false sense of security,but executives recently presented at some trade conference while Manhattan is officially down to 11 locations remaining compared to 27 at this point with as many as half the remaining locations there being threatened.Not to mention last truckload was somewhat paltry at least in respect to basic(non-seasonal) merchandise though we did get new security fixtures.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/rite-aid ... 00657.html

PHILADELPHIA, November 04, 2022--Rite Aid (NYSE: RAD) announced today that President and CEO Heyward Donigan and CFO Matt Schroeder will present at the Credit ...



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They did another big debt pay down this month or last month.

I notice I keep taking the last item from the shelf when I am shopping...

[norcalriteaidclerk]

Pittsburgh remains a dominant market for them that has seen few closures if any(maybe because of the Eckerd legacy),but even the stores there have seen their share of severe operational deficiencies.

► Show Spoiler

Normal operating hours have resumed recently(last week).However our new assistant manager is on loan to 6661 Auburn for the time given that their store manager (who was the Sunrise Village manager when I landed there when 7900 Arcadia closed) recently decided she had seen enough.A former pleasant Grove manager (who upon that store's closure was nominally placed at Roseville Foothills but was known to help at other locations including ours)also jumped ship as well (she had barely been reassigned to natomas but the poor operating conditions were too much for her).It seems that the stores have lost many 'adults in the room' within the past 12 months.At least we got back the one supervisor (one of several 900 Sunrise transfers)which had tried to return to her old Safeway job.Also according to an internal memo the stores will soon receive 'no loitering or open alcohol consumption' signs to be placed outside which is long overdue due to the center becoming a homeless magnet.

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[storewanderer]

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.

That'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.

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.

[veteran+]

Also remember in NYC, "walk ups" also causes people to shop almost everyday for stuff because there are few elevators. Another good thing for the delivery business, online and off.

[norcalriteaidclerk]

► Show Spoiler

Was in the Carmichael Manzanita store(manageable walking distance from home) earlier today to get my moderna omicron booster and flu shot(my primary series and first booster were both moderna,but 5409 Sunrise this time ended up getting the Pfizer version of the bivalent boosters and even some vaccinated customers are understandably skeptical enough to mix doses, I had received my initial doses early on when they initially received moderna)during their open vaccination hour.It was truck day so it was natural that pallets and totes would be all over the sales floor.There was a hiring sign at the door suggesting a staffing shortage on their part.I did notice that there are random beverage overstock facings in various items affected by merchandise category reductions (which makes sense as this was an RA-1 that remodeled into the wellness 2.0 format but still has a rudimentary stockroom despite the presence of a walk-in cooler/freezer).The registers have new larger pin pads (my store hasn't changed pinpads in years)but self-checkouts remain lacking just like my store(only Rancho Cordova and Sacramento Kiefer are known to have them locally based on out of store returns we have taken in recent years).Store and pharmacy remain busy and traditionally have been.In fact as is the case of most Sacramento locations their pharmacy is again closing at 8 in weekdays for the time being while my store remains a holdout despite recently returning to normal house at the front end(but then again even pharmacy volume has seemed to nosedived at Sunrise Village,even the 8pm hour hasn't been anything to write home about,in fact at least one customer recently noted that my store has been atypically quiet for a chain drugstore).

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