CVS to end liquor sales in "Health Hub" stores

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Re: CVS to end liquor sales in "Health Hub" stores

Post by storewanderer »

jamcool wrote: August 20th, 2022, 9:08 am In Sun City (AZ) there are several Walgreens with large liquor departments. And the stores seem to be better stocked than the rest of the Phoenix stores who seem to be half empty.
The high volume Walgreens are still pretty fully stocked and well merchandised. In Reno they have five stores like that (~3200 S. Virginia, N. Virginia, N. McCarran, Carson City, Pyramid Highway). Then they have some stores that are what I call "pretty fully stocked" - these are missing some SKUs and missing back aisle facing endcaps (Vista, Gardnerville,~12000 S. Virginia). Then they have these other stores where they took aisles out, put boxes on a lot of unused shelf space on the remaining aisles, and look like they could go out of business quickly (Oddie, Lemmon, Los Altos Pkwy., Fernley, Fallon, Susanville, Grass Valley).

There is an interesting Walgreens in Auburn, CA. It has never done well. At one point it was converted to the "take aisles out and put boxes in the unused space" format. Then it was converted back to being a fully merchandised store but they did not put back in the aisles they removed (but they did put back the back facing endcaps). Last time I was there, they seemed to be in the process of converting it back to the low inventory format again.

I have noticed when traveling there are a lot of those aisles removed/boxes on unused shelf Walgreens in medium sized markets (most out around Medford, OR and many in Sacramento suburbs are also like that).
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Re: CVS to end liquor sales in "Health Hub" stores

Post by norcalriteaidclerk »

I visited a converted health hub CVS at Sacramento campus Commons a couple months ago and it was still merchandised normally with liquor.
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Re: CVS to end liquor sales in "Health Hub" stores

Post by storewanderer »

norcalriteaidclerk wrote: October 28th, 2023, 11:38 am I visited a converted health hub CVS at Sacramento campus Commons a couple months ago and it was still merchandised normally with liquor.
The 3 Health Hubs I know of in Reno also still have all liquor, and the 24 hour store in Sparks.

I'm not sure one of the Reno stores would survive without Liquor. Liquor is about all its front end sells (pharmacy is fairly busy).
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Re: CVS to end liquor sales in "Health Hub" stores

Post by bryceleinan »

Reno has four Health Hub stores:

Sparks - McCarran and Prater
Reno - Damonte Ranch and Virginia
Reno - Plumb and Virginia
Reno - Robb and Mae Anne

The Sparks location is not that far away from the Safeway that @storewanderer discussed with shrink issues. I have not been to that store in a couple of years, however, I seem to recall liquor was already locked up. This is/was a 24 hour location.
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Re: CVS to end liquor sales in "Health Hub" stores

Post by Alpha8472 »

They talked about being healthy and stopping alcohol sales, but then they realized that these stores would lose tons of sales and would probably have to shut down.

They claimed getting rid of tobacco was for health reasons, but in that case it was about the shrink and labor. Alcohol actually makes money vs. tobacco.

CVS will conveniently forget that they ever made the announcement.

I am waiting for them to make an announcement that they will stop selling candy, chips, sodas, cookies, ice cream, and energy drinks.
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Re: CVS to end liquor sales in "Health Hub" stores

Post by storewanderer »

bryceleinan wrote: October 28th, 2023, 7:14 pm Reno has four Health Hub stores:

Sparks - McCarran and Prater
Reno - Damonte Ranch and Virginia
Reno - Plumb and Virginia
Reno - Robb and Mae Anne

The Sparks location is not that far away from the Safeway that @storewanderer discussed with shrink issues. I have not been to that store in a couple of years, however, I seem to recall liquor was already locked up. This is/was a 24 hour location.
The Sparks Store has had a big rolling cage and padlock to lock up the walkway into liquor (alcove adjacent to entry) since the 90's when it was Osco/Sav-On and open 24 hours. This was primarily used overnight in the past, after 10 PM. It has been used on and off over the years. Lately I don't think CVS has been using it, and it may have actually disappeared during the semi recent CVS Store Remodel.

To discontinue liquor sales at Plumb and Virginia- they might as well just close the store entirely. The relocated/downsized version of that store is much improved from the old large version but it still sells a lot of liquor.
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