Essential retailer shares plans to close hundreds of stores todayheadline

The internet has not crushed the brick-and-mortar retail business.

Good retailers that provide strong shopping experiences have thrived. People go to stores like Marshalls, Ross Dress for Less, and Five Below because they deliver a mix of value, needed goods, and a positive shopping experience.

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The same might be said for Costco and Walmart’s Sam’s Club. People like to shop at these stores because the experience is more than just picking things off shelves.

All these retailers offer a mix of value and treasure hunt, but that’s not the only retail model that works. 

Barnes & Noble, for example, a chain once thought to be near death at the hands of Amazon, has figured out how to serve the reading public and has returned to growth.

Dick’s Sporting Goods, a retailer that could have easily been replaced by the internet, has also thrived by adding experiences to its stores, making them destinations. 

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What the internet has done is expose weakness. If you offer.a bad shopping experience, then consumers simply won’t be bothered.

They may stop in to get something they absolutely need immediately, but most people will transfer any other shopping to digital or rival brick-and-mortar retailers who offer a better experience. 

Walgreens caused its own problems 

The internet did not kill Walgreens; the chain’s wounds are largely self-inflicted. Consumers still largely pick up their prescriptions at a physical store.

It’s natural to then buy other things, but Walgreens (WBA) has made its shopping experience awful. Consumers might do some shopping when they’re already in a store, but when goods are locked up and require ringing a bell and waiting for someone to free them, they might literally order the same item on their phone from Amazon while waiting for their medicine.

People like the immediacy of grabbing something and taking it home. Walgreens and rival CVS have ruined that experience in many stores. That has contributed to Walgreens’ decision to close 450 to 500 stores in 2025 as part of a greater plan to shut down more than 1,200 locations.

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Walgreens Chief Executive Tim Wentworth outlined what he called the company’s “footprint optimization program,” a business-speak way to say store closures, during its first-quarter earnings call.

“We’re currently exceeding historical script retention rates and have retained the majority of store and pharmacy team members,” he said. “We expect to significantly ramp the pace of our store closures from the first-quarter level. As a reminder, we have a lot of experience with store closures, having closed about 2,000 locations over the past decade.”

That’s a bit like your doctor telling you she’s “good at end of life” because she’s “lost so many patients.”

Walgreens is already closing stores

Walgreens, which is being taken private by the New York private-equity firm Sycamore Partners, has already begun closing locations. In fact, the chain has gotten aggressive about it.

“To handle the stepped-up pace for the next three years, we’ve assembled a dedicated team to focus exclusively on the end-to-end process to improve upon our historical results,” the CEO said. “This team has already sequenced the next approximately 450 store closures. And at this point, we have a high degree of confidence in the execution of this process through the end of 2025.”

The chain isn’t just getting smaller, it’s also trying to get smarter in how it deploys resources.

“Across the enterprise, we are refining the way we forecast, allocate, and schedule labor in our stores,” Wentworth added. “Beginning with about 200 stores this month, we’re launching new scheduling optimization logic to better deliver on the in-store experience for our customers, patients and team members. 

“The solution deploys labor based on store-specific demand patterns while also accounting for team member availability and preferences.” 

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He also noted that Walgreens has done a good job moving business from closed stores into ones staying open.

“We were successful in beating our own targets and moving patients into the receiving stores. So, that was good. We closed stores and we didn’t just give up share,” he said.