CVS opens smaller format stores because the industry sees a large shift

Pharmacy CVS expands its mark. But the focus is on the smaller formats of stores exclusively offered by pharmacy services.

Transition to small formats shops occurs when the industry works on rights and reduce the costs in response to permanent problems, including intensive competition and displacement of consumer benefits.

CVS confirmed Fox Business that it will open at least a dozen lesser places in individual communities across the country over the next year.

New pharmacies, which will average less than 5,000 square feet, will have a full -time pharmacy without a prescription available for purchase and will be designed to meet specific community pharmacy needs.

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“Taking an individual approach to our mark, which is focused on the specific needs of the communities we are serving, we continue to strategically rebuild our pharmacy trail to better support the patient and provide proper geographical lighting,” said CVS Fox Business.

A look at the inside of the CVS store with a smaller format. (CVS)

However, the company said it still opens traditional places at the CVS pharmacy that contain a full front store and pharmacy. In addition to new pharmacies, the company plans to open nearly 30 CVS pharmacy, including Target Marget stores.

EMARKER Senior analyst Radzhev Levental told Fox Business that the retail model of the pharmacy business was difficult for companies such as CVS and Walgreens to work successfully as people are increasingly turning to online channels for household items.

An increasing number of closing in CVS, Rite Aid and Walgreens In recent years, it has been emphasized by how the industry is trying to fix itself after the rapid expansion of its traces. CVS has closed hundreds of shops and fired staff to re -dash their investments and follow the client’s changing needs. Between 2022 and 2024, he closed 900 shops and opened 100 new places. It plans to close the additional 270 in 2025.

Why are pharmacies neighborhood close

The sign means the location of the new Pharmacy CVS on May 5, 2004 in Chicago, Illinois. (Scott Olsan / Getti Image / Getty Images)

In 2023, Rite Aid was submitted to bankruptcy and launched a store optimization plan, closing 154 places. Then, in 2024, Walgreens announced that over the next three years he plans to close at least 1,200 shops, trying to cut costs and turn his activity. Walgreens did not comment on whether the company will change if the company is private. Last week, Walgreens, once a $ 100 billion business, agreed to sell a private Sycamore Partners in an agreement worth 10% of this, about $ 10 billion.

Levental expects the move to accelerate and will potentially increase, the number of shutting shop. He predicts that large companies such as Walgreens and CVS will continue to close many of his shops while focusing on pharmacy services in the places they keep open.

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“Consumers prefer the cost, speed and convenience. Over all. Pharmacies lock the items to avoid theft that further disappointing buyers and make many refuse shopping in the store,” Levental said. However, he stressed that the recent CVS and Walgreens retailers are much more about the front of the store than behind the pharmacies.

“Patients will always need their medicines, and CVS and Walgreens take the first and second -size pharmacy in the US, measured by common prescription income,” Levental added.

Levental believes that new CVS store formats can help the company become less dependent on customer traffic in the store. It also suggests that this model may allow pharmacists to play a greater role in patients’ health decisions.

“The doubling of a sustainable business-receptive and without a prescription is a savvy game,” he said.