What are those longtime core markets back east where they still have critical mass to even have strength at this point? They haven't been in MI with mass much longer than they've been out west. They are certainly established and with a strong base in PA. The rest of the east was gutted by the Walgreens deal and their stores are few and far between. NY still has about 250 stores but before the Walgreens deal it had like 600+ stores; they are a shadow of what they once were in NY.Bagels wrote: ↑July 13th, 2023, 2:08 am
I moved to CA in 2000, shortly after I graduated HS. Maybe a year after I moved, my allergies flared and I was prescribed a medicine that my insurance would only fill in 10-day increments and yet I desperately needed especially when I worked out. So, I visited the drug store at least three times per month. I choose Rite Aid largely out of stupidity as it was the only familiar chain (IIRC, this was in between the time CVS exited and re-entered the market; Walgreens had some stores but they had just entered the market where I grew up and I knew them only as the chain that had stores on every block in Chicago).
I visited multiple Rite Aids -- mainly the one (that recently closed) in Irvine at Alton/Culver but also locations in Garden Groove, Fountain Valley/Huntington Beach, Laguna Woods, etc. Rite Aid was ALWAYS super busy. The ice cream counter clearly brought in the foot traffic on hot summer days. Today, I rarely see any foot traffic in these stores. The Alton/Culver location is a good example -- the wall by the employees' office was loaded with sales volume awards from years gone by, but it turned into a ghost town in the past decade. Meanwhile, the CVS a couple miles up the road at Alton/Jeffrey is thriving.
CVS unquestionably has the most foot traffic locally. Some of that is due to insurance -- as you noted, many large employees use CVS (Caremark) as their pharmacy manager, and employees get lower co-pays when filling prescriptions there. And of course, some portions of SoCal were oversaturated with CVS after it began building its store fleet organically, then acquired Savon, Long's and Target pharmacies. It's only been in recent years that it began to weed excess stores out (presumably as their leases expire). Walgreens doesn't do the foot traffic that CVS does, but in my experiences it's far better than Rite Aid.
Rite Aid's downfall was partially blamed on overburdening its stores with groceries and general merchandise. Groceries were the next big thing ~15 years ago, when everybody raced to add freezers, refrigerators and fresh produce to their stores. Longs had some great prices on their groceries -- we purchased a ton of fresh produce at their Hawaii stores -- but allegedly it was treated as a loss leader. CVS & Walgreens have improved their assortment, but both have pulled back. I've noticed that locally, many CVS stores no longer carry milk, bread and eggs.
Alas, I believe Rite Aid's strength is in its longtime core markets within the East and that the West/ CA stores are underperforming, but of course we don't have access to the hard data.
Keep in mind here at this point the chain has about 2,200 Rite Aid stores and ~??50 Bartell Stores. Of that, basically 1,400 of the stores are in PA, CA, MI, and WA.
CA is absolutely not underperforming for Rite Aid. It is one of their best, strongest markets. They have penetration in many areas where other drugstore chains are not present, as well as various valuable leases that make them the only pharmacy in established shopping centers in very mature neighborhoods. Many of the highest volume stores in the chain are in CA. Some of their best run stores are also in CA.
What is interesting up in, for instance, OR, is that while Rite Aid has a lot of stores, they do not seem to do particularly well. Also for whatever reason back in the late 90's when Payless was doing a lot of store expansion, they allowed competitor supermarkets to open in the same shopping center with pharmacy present. This is the issue a lot of those OR Stores have. I think it causes some underperformance. But this isn't the case with every shopping center Payless opened in during the late 90's, there are some where they are the only pharmacy.
Funny you should mention milk, bread, and eggs as I've noticed CVS quit offering those in some stores in my area too, and the lone NV Rite Aid in Gardnerville has also quit carrying milk and eggs sometime in the past few months. I wonder if these places had the same distributor.
