WXYZ, Fox 47: Jeff Stoltman on Walgreens' plan to shutter 200 stores in US
Walgreens has announced that it will shutter 200 hundred stores after reporting a weak profit outlook for 2019. Experts aren't exactly surprised. That includes Wayne State University business school professor Jeff Stoltman, who says the site saturation model of drug stores at every corner is long gone. The online competition for brick and mortar chains is real and stronger than ever. But Amazon isn't single-handedly creating the tough headwinds. "People will combine shopping trips at say Target or Kroger...and their prescriptions will get filled there. It’s not just online. It’s the advent of all these other channels of competition," said Stoltman. Walgreens hasn’t revealed which stores will close, and says it doesn’t plan to. Stoltman thinks that could just mean they may not have agreed on which stores will shut down.
