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At a tumultuous time for drugstore chains, CVS is investing in new, smaller stores that only offer pharmacy services.
The chain plans to open approximately a dozen stores this year, but they will be about half the size of a typical CVS location. The stores will be pharmacies only, leaving behind the aisles of snacks, drinks, and miscellaneous goods typical of a full-size CVS.
By shrinking its stores, CVS is hoping it will be able to continue to expand at a time when it and many other American businesses are facing financial difficulty. The company has already closed more than 1,000 stores since 2021, and laid off thousands of workers.
Drugstores like CVS have to compete with smaller convenience stores like 7-Eleven or shops attached to gas stations as well as big online retailers like Amazon, where household goods can also be bought.
CVS faces less competition — for now — with the pharmacy side of its business. Without a convenience store attached, CVS can cut back on many of its workers who would otherwise be stocking shelves or watching for shoplifters, a problem that’s also driven the company to abandon its food aisles.
The smaller-format stores are reportedly “designed to meet the community’s specific pharmacy needs,” a CVS spokesperson told CNN.
“By taking a customized approach to our footprint that is focused on the specific needs of the communities we serve, we’re continuing to strategically realign our pharmacy footprint to better support patients and ensure the right geographic coverage,” they said.
Nell Saunders, the managing director of GlobalData Retail, told CNN that the move would make it cheaper for CVS to operate its stores, but cautioned that online prescription fillers were becoming more popular and that CVS will soon have more competitors nipping at its customer base.
The move likely won’t be popular with consumers. A 2023 Acosta Group study found that U.S. consumers use the convenience stores attached to drugstores to shop for everyday items as much as they use the pharmacy services.
It also found that consumers typically prefer a quick run to a drugstore when they need to grab an item. A reported 64 percent of respondents said they preferred shopping for their pharmacy and medical needs at a drugstore over going to a mass retailer, a grocery store, or using an online service. Nearly 60 percent said drugstores, of the four, provided the easiest and most convenient shopping experience.
