Walgreens Boots Alliance plans to close 1,200 stores during the next three years, with 500 closures set for next year, in the face of low drug reimbursement rates and slower consumer spending.
The Deerfield, Illinois-based company on Tuesday said it would shutter roughly 14% of its U.S. locations and redeploy the majority of the workers impacted. “We are in a turnaround,” Tim Wentworth, the drugstore chain’s CEO, told an earnings call.
“The closure of so many stores is emblematic of a company that is in trouble and is trying to course correct,” commented Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData. “Walgreens spent years building its business through acquisitions and completely neglected the fundamentals of its stores and its retail operations,” the analyst added.
In my area, they can’t even keep pharmacists from walking out, apparently, as they’ll just randomly have the pharmacy closed for the day when you walk in on a Monday at 2pm for example (at multiple locations). This was really fun when it started happening regularly since my parents are both full of health problems and have their prescriptions sent there (for medication needed ASAP) only to find out the pharmacy is closed and there’s no way for me to pick up the order without calling the doctor back and trying to get it sent somewhere else and filled and hoping this can all be accomplished before 5pm.
Apart from the pharmacy, it seems like they only ever have 1-2 employees working, shelves are empty, the store is trashed, and prices are high. Rite-Aid already shut down a bunch of locations so I’m surprised these other big chains have managed this long after years of corporate cost cutting and forcing their remaining employees to do the job of 6 people for minimum wage while the executives rake in millions.