There was a note in an investor article about the Kroger-Albertsons deal that said the Albertsons pharmacy operation is on fire... Up 23%. Costco pharmacy has longer and longer lines every time I go, and the store I visited yesterday had just reconfigured the counter to add terminals and space for more customers to be served simultaneously at pickup.storewanderer wrote: ↑January 31st, 2024, 11:31 pm Safeway runs an archaic old pharmacy software, it looks like MS DOS or something. I'm not sure what happened to the old Osco/Sav-On software Albertsons used to use which was better/more modern... must be sitting in the dust bin in Minnesota at Supervalu... maybe still works at a few Cub pharmacies or something.
I still see some pretty busy Safeway pharmacies however, and everyone working in them seems to be in a pretty good mood. Significantly better/more relaxed attitude there than Walgreens or CVS.
The comment about Osco/SavOn reminded me about the short-lived new SavOn prototype. I remember a couple of them were set up in Huntington Beach, one was a new build and other might have been a remodel. It was probably as nice, if not nicer, than the "upscale" version of Rite Aid Wellness. It had some similarities to Albertsons "Blue and green awnings" decor if I recall, but bright. The store had a "botanical" theme, I remember pictures of plants and such with a lot of southwest pastels and earth tones - but not "dated" looking like early 90's mauve and teal. Unfortunately these were set up right before the deal to sell to CVS was announced. CVS destroyed these as fast as possible, ripping down all the nice signage, painting the walls plain white, and removing extra lighting such as spotlights and such immediately then glued those nasty carpet tiles down over the fancy tile floors. I wonder how many (few?) of those fancy new stores ever got set up?
CVS, Walgreens and Rite Aid have destroyed themselves with bad service, high prices, and unpleasant stores.