Walgreens closing down multiple underperforming US stores, what went wrong?

The CEO of Walgreens has shared a rather disturbing announcement, claiming that due to many of their US stores currently struggling, they have taken a call to close down some of them. According to ABC News, one out of four Walgreens stores in the US are underperforming amid stiff contest from competing retail chains like Target.

A quarter of total Walgreens outlets in US underperforming, say reports

While the exact number of stores to be closed down is still being finalized, Walgreens tried to rebrand itself initially by slashing down its prices, giving record discounts, in a bid to entice customers and keep them glued to their store but to no avail as out of the 8,500 stores under operation in the US, a quarter of them was severely underperforming, a fact which the CEO explained along with stating that this was a reason why the quarterly earnings of this year was also below par compared to the expectations.

Walgreens working on revamping struggling stores

The pharma giant is currently contemplating making a few changes to these struggling stores in order to maintain the steady footfall, but if these plans fail, the only option would be to close these stores down. This shocking announcement of store closures across the country comes in almost 8 months after Walgreens pursued a journey to flag consumer spending and monitor minute to adverse changes around the US pharmaceutical industry, which is one of the leading money-makers.

Employee layoff not being considered alongside store closure, says CEO

According to USA Today, Walgreens is also facing major challenges due to costly federal regulations and insufficient reimbursements, which have created a negative impact in their overall cash flow. However, their call to close down stores will not come in with the call for downsizing the employment structure. According to the CEO of Walgreens, redeploying the vast majority of the workforce at the stores is one of their primary agenda so that the workers are retained.

FAQs:

Who is the CEO of Walgreens?
Walgreens' is Chief Executive Officer is Tim Wentworth, who is leading from the front to enhance this pharma brand's dominance in the market alongside making it highly profitable.

Is Walgreens downsizing employees?
As of now there are no reports of employee downsizing by Walgreens. Even though some its US stores may reportedly close down due to underperformance, layoff is not in their books, according to their CEO.