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The language of business and "business speak" can be pretty hilarious sometimes.
Take a November 2020 press release from CVS Pharmacy, for example. The headline was "CVS Health announces steps to accelerate omnichannel health strategy." Not until you read further down the press release do you realize that "accelerating omnichannel strategy" basically is code for "shutting down a bunch of stores."
The company announced in the press release that it was closing 900 stores, 300 apiece in the next three years. The plan has since been put into motion. One CVS in Macon and another in Warner Robins are on the 2022 closing list, according to Channel 13. The CVS on Pio Nono Avenue in Macon is scheduled to close later this month, while the one on Watson Boulevard has a July closing date. In each instance, "prescriptions will transfer to another CVS location" in the same town...
The two Milledgeville locations, meanwhile, are not on the closing list, according to the company.
"There are no plans at this time to close those store locations," replied CVS Corporate Communications Specialist Shannon Dillon to a Baldwin2k email on Monday.
The "Northside CVS" was built in 2008, and the property was purchased by the company that year for $985,000. Pharmacies, for various reasons, love large corner lots. The "southside CVS," meanwhile, came two or three years later. The southside CVS property, which for many years was home to Milledgeville's bus station, has a "total value" $1.441 million, according to the Tax Assessor's Office, and a "land value" of $299,000. The Northside CVS, meanwhile, has a "total value" of $1.341 million and a "land value" of $170,800.
According to an article in Business Insider, which can be read by CLICKING HERE, CVS has been tinkering with change since merging with Aetna, the supersized health insurance company, back in 2018. CVS and Aetna gradually are phasing in "combined health insurance plans" for customers, which is being rolled out in eight states this year. Also, according to the Business Insider article:
In 2019, CVS announced plans to transform 1,500 stores into HealthHUB locations by the end of 2021, committing at least 20% of floor space to health and wellness products instead of snacks and other traditional convenience store items as customers increasingly buy those goods from online retailers like Amazon.
Meanwhile, an article from CNBC, which can be read by CLICKING HERE, says that CVS' business model change was accelerated by "changing consumer habits formed during COVID, adding that "more people are getting prescriptions filled online, retrieving personal care items through curbside pickup and visiting with doctors through telehealth. The drugstore chain and health insurer said it is closing the stores based on changes to the population, customer habits and health needs.
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