Walgreens Closing More Stores. What Should NJ Customers Do?

Walgreens has announced it plans on closing as many as 2100 stores over the next three years.

That is roughly 25 percent of their 8600 locations throughout the country.

These closings are in addition to the over 600 locations already closed by the company.

The company blames poor performance, theft, and saturation as the main reasons for the closures.

Read More:  Pleasantville, NJ Walgreens Location Set to Close on February 20 (wfpg.com)

They also blame mail-order pharmacies for changing the way consumers have their prescriptions filled.

It's difficult to feel bad for companies like Walgreens and CVS Caremark, another company closing stores.

Talk to owners of your locally-owned family pharmacy, and they'll point to what they call predatory practices that big companies like these employed to try to knock them out of business.

By controlling plan benefits managers, they were able to kill most of the locally-owned stores.

That's a story for another day.

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Walgreens hasn't made official the list of locations that will be closed, but if you depend on medication you take regularly, it might be time to search out a new pharmacy that you know will be around.

Perhaps, it's time to reconsider your locally-owned family pharmacy.

There aren't anywhere near as many as there used to be, but they do still exist, and they deserve your support.

Contrary to popular belief, they aren't more expensive than the big box stores.  If you don't have insurance, you can negotiate a price with the family-owned pharmacy.

That's because you're talking to the owner.  That's something the big stores can't do.