Walgreens to close 1,200 stores as US pharmacies struggle to define a new role

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Walgreens to close 1,200 stores as US pharmacies struggle to define a new role

2024-10-16 04:55 Last Updated At：05:00

Walgreens is planning to close around 1,200 locations, as the drugstore chain and its rivals struggle to define their role for U.S. shoppers who no longer look to them first for convenience.

Drugstores that once snapped up prime retail space in towns and cities across the country are in retreat. They’ve been battered by shrinking prescription reimbursement, persistent theft, rising costs and consumers who have strayed to online retailers or competitors with better prices.

The boost they received from taking the lead on vaccinations during the COVID-19 pandemic has long since faded.

Walgreens’ announcement Tuesday morning comes as rival CVS Health wraps up a three-year plan to close 900 stores and Rite Aid emerges from bankruptcy, whittled down to about 1,300 locations.

As the companies retract, they raise concerns in many communities about access to health care and prescriptions.

Drugstore leaders and analysts who follow the industry say smaller versions of these chains have a future in U.S. retail, but they're still trying to understand how that will play out.

“They’ve really got to rethink how they do business and, most importantly, what they mean and what value they bring to the customer,” said Neil Saunders, managing director of consulting and data analysis firm GlobalData.

Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc., which runs about 8,500 stores in the U.S., said in late June that it was finalizing a turnaround plan in the U.S. that might lead to hundreds of store closings.

The company said Tuesday that it will start by closing about 500 stores in its current fiscal year, which started last month.

Walgreens didn’t say where the store closings would take place. It will prioritize poor-performing stores where the property is owned by the company, or where leases are expiring.

CEO Tim Wentworth told analysts Tuesday that the majority of its stores, or about 6,000, are profitable and provide the company with a foundation to build on.

“This solid base supports our conviction in a retail pharmacy led model that is relevant to our consumers, and we intend to invest in these stores over the next several years,” said Wentworth, who became CEO nearly a year ago.

Wentworth said the remaining Walgreens stores will help the company respond more quickly to shifting consumer behavior and buying patterns. The company also is taking another look at what it sells in its stores and planning to offer more Walgreens-branded products.

Walgreens also is experimenting with some smaller stores that would be less expensive to operate.

Drugstores also have been pushing to offer more care, with pharmacists diagnosing and treating the flu, strep throat and COVID-19 in many states. Pharmacists say they can play a key role in keeping their customers healthy since they often see people more frequently than family doctors.

Pharmacists can help patients monitor their blood pressure, manage diabetes and quit smoking, among other things.

CVS also is squeezing primary care clinics with doctors into some of its stores. But Walgreens is backing away from a similar push.

The Deerfield, Illinois, company said in August that it was reviewing its U.S. health care operation, and it might sell all or part of its VillageMD clinic business. That announcement came less than two years after the company said it would spend billions to expand it.

Saunders, the analyst, said Walgreens has neglected its stores in recent years as it built its business through acquisitions. He said the appearance of the chain’s locations has suffered, and a lack of staffing hurts customer service.

He noted that store visits are slumping, and the company has lost market share.

“And that has unraveled some of the economics of these stores,” he said.

Saunders said drugstores “have really shot themselves in the foot” because they no longer have a clear way to differentiate themselves from other retailers.

“When you want to get the big bucks from consumers, you have to be a destination for something,” he said. “And unfortunately, drugstores have increasingly become destinations for nothing.”

Germans mourn attack on Christmas market with no answers about why

2024-12-21 15:18 Last Updated At：15:21

MAGDEBURG, Germany (AP) — Germans began Saturday mourning another violent attack and their shaken sense of security after a Saudi doctor drove a black BMW into a Christmas market teeming with holiday shoppers on Friday evening, killing at least two people, including a small child, and injuring at least 60 others in what authorities called a deliberate attack.

Authorities identified the suspect as a 50-year-old who has been living in Germany for nearly two decades and practicing medicine there. He was arrested Friday evening at the site of the attack as medical officials tended to the injured, and was taken into custody for questioning.

But on Saturday there were still no answers as to what caused the man to drive into a crowd in the eastern Germany city of Magdeburg.

The violence shocked the country and the city, bringing its mayor to the verge of tears and marring a festive event that’s part of a centuries-old German tradition. It prompted several other German towns to cancel their weekend Christmas markets as a precaution and out of solidarity with Magdeburg’s loss.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Interior Minister Nancy Faeser were due to travel to Magdeburg on Saturday, and a memorial service is to take place in the city cathedral in the evening.

“My thoughts are with the victims and their relatives," Scholz wrote on X. "We stand beside them and beside the people of Magdeburg.”

Magdeburg is a city of about 240,000 people, west of Berlin, that serves as Saxony-Anhalt’s capital. Friday’s attack came eight years after an Islamic extremist drove a truck into crowded Christmas market in Berlin, killing 13 people and injuring many others. The attacker was killed days later in a shootout in Italy.

Verified bystander footage distributed by the German news agency dpa showed the suspect’s arrest at a tram stop in the middle of the road. A nearby police officer pointing a handgun at the man shouted at him as he lay prone, his head arched up slightly. Other officers soon arrived and took the man into custody.

The two people confirmed dead were an adult and a toddler, but officials said additional deaths couldn't be ruled out because 15 people had been seriously injured.

“As things stand, he is a lone perpetrator, so that as far as we know there is no further danger to the city," Saxony-Anhalt's governor, Reiner Haseloff, told reporters. “Every human life that has fallen victim to this attack is a terrible tragedy and one human life too many.”

Authorities identified the suspect as a 50-year-old Saudi doctor who moved to Germany in 2006 and who had been practicing medicine in Bernburg, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of Magdeburg.

Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry condemned the attack on X but did not mention the suspect’s connection to the kingdom.

Christmas markets are a German holiday tradition cherished since the Middle Ages, now successfully exported to much of the Western world.

Hours after Friday's tragedy, the wail of sirens clashed with the market’s festive ornaments, stars and leafy garlands.

Magdeburg resident Dorin Steffen told dpa that she was at a concert in a nearby church when she heard the sirens. The cacophony was so loud “you had to assume that something terrible had happened.”

She called the attack “a dark day” for the city.

“We are shaking,” Steffen said. “Full of sympathy for the relatives, also in the hope that nothing has happened to our relatives, friends and acquaintances.”

The attack reverberated far beyond Magdeburg, with Haseloff calling it a catastrophe for the city, state and country. He said flags would be lowered to half-staff in Saxony-Anhalt and that the federal government planned to do the same.

“It is really one of the worst things one can imagine, particularly in connection with what a Christmas market should bring," the governor said.

Moulson reported from Berlin.