Pharmacies used to be an essential part of the community. They have evolved over the decades and no longer offer soda fountains or food, but until very recently, they remained very important.
Yes, at the heart of their offering, pharmacies were places where you could pick up your drug prescription. In reality, most of these stores were so much more.
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In many cases, pharmacies like CVS or Walgreens stood in for grocery stores because they were more convenient. If you just needed some trash bags, a six pack of beer, and a can of soup, your local pharmacy met those needs.
Recently, however, these stores have become less important. Some of that is because many prescriptions are now filled via mail.
If you used to have to visit a local pharmacy once or twice a month to pick up medicine, you invariably bought other things. Take away the need to visit the store, and it loses all of those high-margin sales.
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In addition, many pharmacy staples can now be ordered online or via same-day delivery services. Both of these are also taking away a piece of the business and making pharmacies less necessary.
Add in the shift to telehealth appointments, and pharmacies that offer walk-in clinics have less appeal. It’s death by 1,000 paper cuts, but it’s death nonetheless.
Image source: Shutterstock
A lot of pharmacies are closing
While Rite Aid (RAD) may be the biggest headline because it’s closing all locations as part of its bankruptcy filings, it’s not the only pharmacy chain shuttering stores.
Walgreens has plans to shut down over 1,200 location across the country by 2027. About 500 of those will happen this year. CEO Tim Wentworth explained the closures in a media statement.
“In fiscal 2025, we are focusing on stabilizing the retail pharmacy by optimizing our footprint, controlling operating costs, improving cash flow, and continuing to address reimbursement models to support dispensing margins and preserve patient access for the future,” he said.
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CVS also has plans to close just under 300 stores in 2025. That’s part of a broader effort where it shut down about 900 locations between 2022 and 2024 while also opening 100 new pharmacies.
Now, in a year where over 1,000 pharmacies have closed with more than that to come, another chain has called it quits.
Drug Emporium closing stores
Losing local and regional pharmacies hits even harder than when a national chain closes. These stores often have deep community ties across multiple generations.
Drug Emporium is one of those chains, and it described its place in the community on its website.
“The one stop shop that has it all! The place that carries rare, hard-to-find items that you can’t find in large grocery store chains. The store that offers something new you didn’t know you wanted on every single trip,” it shared.
Its owners are clearly proud of its merchandise.
“The emporium with a pharmacy, groceries, vitamins, supplements, makeup, and special diet health foods, plus so much more. What about all the other unique products at Drug Emporium? Once you go, then you’ll know,” it added.
Now, that chain’s West Virginia locations are shutting down.
Local television station WBOY first reported the news:
“A popular West Virginia drug store chain will close down this summer. Drug Emporium has two stores in Charleston and one in Barboursville, and all three are scheduled to close in July of this year,” it shared.
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The pharmacies had closed at all three locations in September 2024.
Drug Emporium’s owner Bob Petryszak said that the shutdowns were due to high costs.
The chain still operates in Arkansas, Texas, and Louisiana,
