RELATED: This Iconic Department Store Is Closing 60 Stores, Starting in January. Rite Aid said on Dec. 21 that it plans to shutter at least 60 of its stores, per CNBC. The popular drugstore chain has not yet revealed which locations it will be closing or when they will close, but a total of 63 stores are on the chopping block. The closures will account for 2 percent of Rite Aid’s retail footprint, as the company currently has around 2,500 stores across 19 states, according to CNN. Rite Aid’s closures are part of its overall reassessment on how many locations it needs in the U.S. The company said closing stores will help “reduce costs, drive improved profitability and ensure that we have a healthy foundation to grow from, with the right stores in the right locations, for the communities it serves and for its business,” Rite Aid said in a statement on Dec. 21. According to the drugstore chain, the closures are expected to save the company $25 million. RELATED: For more retail news delivered straight to your inbox, sign up for our daily newsletter. This is not Rite Aid’s first significant set of closures. In 2018, the drugstore chain transferred nearly 2,000 of its locations to Walgreens, as reported by Forbes. Walgreens bought 1,932 stores and three distribution centers from Rite Aid for nearly $4.4 billion. Despite the transition, Walgreens still closed hundreds of Rite Aid-turned-Walgreens locations in 2018 and 2019, per Louisville Business First.ae0fcc31ae342fd3a1346ebb1f342fcb Other drugstore chains have been making serious cuts. In early November, Walgreens closed five of its stores in San Francisco. Later that month, CVS announced that it was planning to close more than 900 stores by the end of 2024. According to the drugstore chain, it will shutter about 300 stores every year for the next three years and closures will begin in the spring of 2022. But unlike Rite Aid, Walgreens and CVS each have more than 9,000 locations in the U.S. right now, compared to the roughly 2,500 Rite Aid locations, per Forbes. CVS is still closing a significant amount, as the shuttered locations will account for nearly 10 percent of all the company’s stores. RELATED: This Iconic Retailer Is Closing All But 6 Stores by the End of 2021.
