https://valueinvesting.io/WBA/proba...of,current fundamentals and market conditions. We get 60+ resumes, on average, daily.
Interesting the comparison list of peer companies does nor include CVS Pharmacy. The comparison is a list of Grocery markets instead of drug stores. That's odd.
Interesting, and maybe karma at work in due time? One of the very worst shopping experiences of my life was in one of their stores. A hostile, incompetent, incredibly rude cashier. I have never again spent another cent there. In addition, I know more than a few people who refuse to shop there because of what they sneakily did with respect to Pharmaca. It was a quality pharmacy chain with many natural products. They were attempting to stay in business and were about to pull it off. At the last second in legal proceedings, Walgreen's jumped in and bought out the business for relative pennies, and then shut all their stores down, removing competition. I personally know an elderly woman who lost her job with that move.
I see this kind of thing where I live all the time. Starbucks bought a few local chains and when they couldn't make it profitable they shut them down. I'm not a progressive but I can see where they have been complaining for a while about this kind of anti-competitive behavior. The baby formula debacle was a good example of how there was like only 1 or 2 companies making the full supply and when there was a problem you were left in limbo.
I think this is the heart of the matter. The bottom up, forced diversity of very key large corporations. This was already tried before with K Mart back in the early 1990s. People just stopped shopping there. And particularly now in US. We only have two stand alone drug store chains in many states and there is Very KEY vital supply chains and medical information systems funneled into very few avenues. Huge potential for all prescriptions to stop for a long time for several reasons (hacking, information systems attacks, incompetent employ errors, Phar-Mor type massive Fraud). AND YOU CANT PAY CASH...they WONT LET YOU. If your not in the system...you are Verboten. Very easy pickings for ransom hackers, for nation state attacks, for incompetent errors, for Mass personal data leaks.... Yes...there are pharmacies inside of grocery stores...But they contract the insurance information system back office completely out to the major players. And they deal in mostly generics. They are basically just a service outlet. So when comparing stand alone pharmacies with inside grocery store pharmacies...you are deceiving the comparison. And the generics...50% are made made in Israel. The other 50% are made in India. Huge potential for supply chain disruptions. The article calls out Walgreens as a bankruptcy play...but CVS is no better. And then combining CVS with Atena and seeing what happening to United Health...lol Huge FUBAR
I get prescriptions at Walgreens. I have never been told that I can't pay cash, for prescriptions or any other product. Are you talking about some other country? I do find it offensive that they advertise prices on the shelves that are only applicable if you use their loyalty card, which of course allows them to track your purchases, regardless of how you pay. I don't use their loyalty card. I rarely buy anything at Walgreens other than prescriptions, and when I do, I suck it up and pay the higher price because I won't use their loyalty card. I think those loyalty cards are ripe for a class action lawsuit. Sure, the "real" price is there somewhere on the shelf, in tiny print. The problem I have with the whole mechanism is that in order to get the reduced price, you have to give them something: the power to track all your purchases. And even in the fine print that you get when you sign up for the card, I don't think they are accurately and adequately disclosing what they do with your information, how it is shared, and, most critically, how it can be shared in certain legal proceedings. And I am not talking about protected health information such as your prescription record. That information is supposedly protected in the US by laws such as HIPAA. I'm talking about other stuff, like buying booze or condoms, or anything really, that becomes part of their database, including the date and time of the purchase, and which store you were at. People don't realize that that information can be obtained with a subpoena in a civil lawsuit... for example, in a divorce case. (Gee, Honey... why did you buy condoms six months ago when I had my tubes tied two years ago?) Those cards track all of your purchases--not just the products that are discounted. Collecting all that information without disclosing how it can be shared is unlawful. I think most people do not understand how much privacy they are giving up by using those cards. Of course, even without loyalty cards, if you use a credit or debit card, you are creating a similar record of your purchases and movement. But it is not quite as detailed. The bank that issues your credit card doesn't get a complete record of what you bought.
if you use a credit card, the purchases are already tracked and tied to your home address, employment, mortgage, etc.
If you are looking for a way around loyalty cards, I may have an answer for you. Many of the police/fire personnel in our area use the non emergency 911 phone number at any place that requires a loyalty card and takes a phone number at checkout - all of them do in my area. When they first came out decades ago, someone filled out the form with the physical address to the psych holding building and the non emergency number as they didn't want the ensuing spam and tracking. I think similar things have happened all around the US - try your local number next time you check out. I always wondered how many people were doing this and a few years ago I got a pretty good idea. In April I used it at a grocery store and the receipt read "you have saved $112,000 so far this year by using your loyalty card."
"We get 60+ resumes, on average, daily." That should have said from Walgreens. We were a nearby neighbor. They have now mostly moved out. Folks are saying they were tasked to move and are now simply being booted.