Walgreens was small little stores here only, then full size drugstores, and now is going back to small little stores.storewanderer wrote: ↑June 2nd, 2022, 9:22 pmIf Walgreens closes locations without drive through, that will take out hundreds of the stores they bought from Rite Aid. Good thing they never got a hold of Longs, that would have taken out 85% of the Longs chain.Bagels wrote: ↑June 2nd, 2022, 1:08 pm
You have a better eye than me! I guess painting the walls pee-yellow really changed the physical appearance in my eye; it looks nothing like the Walgreens from my vantage point. I'm curious why the Walgreens closed, too; there is another location nearby, but its a standalone pharmacy - but has a drive-through. I've heard that locations without drive-throughs may close (at least in Orange County), might have something to do with poor sales.
There's an ancient Ralphs a mile up Trabuco, and one of their newest (if not the newest) stores a couple miles up El Toro. That store opened in 2007 and still features the 2000s décor package.
I think Walgreens front end at this point is struggling so badly that opportunities like this to shift to those old RX Express locations are appealing. It is ironic since they spent years getting ouf of the RX Express locations and moving them to full size stores. Now they have a new store model called the Cooper Store (after the Mini Cooper) that is basically RX Express again with a 7-Eleven sized front end.
Always remember that retail is cyclical.
Malls are obsolete dinosaurs that will never survive because customers want to interact more directly with the brands they want, and will drive around to 8 different locations for those 8 different brands.
Until gas is over $6 a gallon.
If gas goes over $6 a gallon then people will want to cut back driving, but still will want to shop in stores for the brands they want.
But where can they go to find all those brands under one roof? I wonder...
Yes I know that I am being overly simplistic, but the growing of stores into larger space, then smaller, then larger etc. is another example of the cyclical nature of retail.
As soon as everyone is sick of the current trend of driving to 27 different boutique and small format locations for their shopping when gas is $6+ and conveniently peak time summer demand electricity is now over 57¢ a kilowatt (how much is it to charge your Tesla at that rate? Probably enough to make you regret buying electric) - they'll all want to get back to being able to make one or two stops and get everything all in one trip. Then they'll remember this place called the Mall, and these big stores called Walmart and Target.
It isn't going to be Amazon either (as we are seeing with their recent reports of having too much warehouse space and needing to do layoffs).
Retail is cyclical. The retailer who is always on the right side of the cycle wins.