Big Boxes Are Fading Away, Too

It was reported by NBC, CNN, the New York Post and other news outlets that Walgreens Boots Alliance D/B/A Walgreens Drug Stores is closing 1,200 stores over the next several years. 500 of the stores will be closed within the next twelve months. The closing stores have not yet been identified.

 

This announcement comes on the heels of the CVS bombshell when it announced it was cutting about 2,900 jobs as part of a $2 billion in cost savings initiative. The layoffs, which affect mostly corporate jobs, add to the 5,000 or so job reductions disclosed last year.

Both chains, along with Rite Aid, cited acquisitions, competition from Amazon and even declining front end sales which comes from discount stores like Dollar General and Dollar Tree, which impacted impulse buying at the front end of the stores.

Walgreens’ CEO Tim Wentworth said in a statement that the “turnaround will take time, but we are confident it will yield significant financial and consumer benefits over the long term.”

Retail analyst Neil Saunders agreed, saying that Walgreens’ eliminating the “dead wood will help the company strengthen its financials over time, but it is a huge admission of failure.”

This is just the latest evidence of a declining economy, where even “big box” pharmacies are feeling the hurt that the rest of us have felt for the last three and one half years. Imagine what the impact is on “mom and pop” neighborhood drug stores. They are becoming a dying enterprise.

Just like so many other small retail outlets, which are vanishing from the landscape.