Rite Aid has now closed all of its stores in Michigan and Ohio, leaving tens of thousands of customers looking for a new pharmacy.
The drugstore’s latest bankruptcy filings show the company has now severed all ties with the two Midwestern states.
Rite Aid had more than 2,000 stores before filing for bankruptcy in October 2023 amid mounting debt.
Shortly afterwards, bosses announced the first closures of 154 businesses. Since then, there has been a steady stream of applications, taking the number of closures to 856, according to analysis by DailyMail.com.
The latest closures — 74 so far in August — have all been in the two Midwest states, except for one each in California and Washington. That’s on top of 169 in July, all in Ohio and Michigan.
Less than a year ago, the two states had the fourth and fifth highest number of Rite Aids in the U.S. Now all 234 in Michigan and 183 in Ohio have closed or will soon.
Rite Aid faces a number of challenges.
Drugstores generally have a hard time competing with large retail chains and with Amazon, which launched its own online pharmacy in 2020.
In addition, Rite Aid faced a series of lawsuits accusing the company of overprescribing opioids.
The most recent closures occurred on July 29, August 2, 5 and 9.
Experts believe Rite Aid is pulling out of areas where it can’t compete with the much larger chains CVS and Walgreens, which also owns Duane Reade.
Instead, it focuses on areas where it can take second place, behind one or the other, such as in Pennsylvania.
It’s unclear when Rite Aid will emerge from bankruptcy, but the company plans to return with about 1,300 stores in total, a stark contrast from when in 2008 it operated 5,059 establishments.
“Rite Aid hopes to get back on solid financial footing, but the company will emerge from bankruptcy as a much smaller company with far fewer stores,” Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData, told DailyMail.com.
DailyMail.com has reached out to Rite Aid for comment but has not yet received a response.
Rite Aid confirmed to DailyMail.com that it will close all of its stores in Michigan and nearly all of its stores in Ohio.
“Rite Aid regularly evaluates our retail operations to ensure we are operating efficiently while meeting the needs of our customers, communities, associates and overall business,” the company said in a statement.
“While we have had to make difficult business decisions in recent months to improve our operations and optimize our retail footprint, we are committed to achieving financial and operational health.”
Walgreens, the largest pharmacy in the U.S. after CVS, is struggling with its own financial problems and announced last month that it would close a “significant” number of its 8,700 U.S. stores.
The widespread “retail apocalypse” that has seen brick-and-mortar stores grapple with rising theft and ever-tightening profit margins is certainly not limited to drugstores.
In the first four months of 2024, there were almost 2,600 store closuresIf this trend continues, nearly 8,000 people will have died by the end of the year.
When Rite Aid filed for bankruptcy protection last October, it announced it would initially close 154 underperforming store locations in more than a dozen states. In the past nine months, it has closed another 618
Three people browse the sparse shelves of a Brooklyn Rite Aid in August 2023, months before the company reportedly went bankrupt
A woman browses the shelves at a Rite Aid in Alhambra, California on October 18, 2023. The store was set to close within days of announcing bankruptcy on October 15.
Rite Aid was once the third largest drugstore chain in the country, with more than 5,000 locations in the U.S. After the bankruptcy, that number could drop to just 1,300
In recent months, Walmart has closed three more of its underperforming locations, while Best Buy closed ten in march.
Dollar stores have also been hit hard: 99 Cents Only announced in April that it would close all 371 of its locations in California, Texas, Arizona and Nevada.
The 1,000 closures of Family Dollar and its sister company Dollar Tree will take place over the next three years.
Express, a well-known mall-based retailer, filed for bankruptcy in April and said it would close 95 Express locations, in addition to all of its UpWest stores.
In early May, Rue21, the teen fashion chain that is a fixture in malls across America, also announced that it would close all of its 543 U.S. stores after filing for bankruptcy.
Badcock Home Furniture & More announced in late July that it will close all 380 of its stores across the southern U.S. after the company filed for bankruptcy earlier this year.
And last week it was announced that Big Lots will close 315 stores in multiple states as its financial problems mount.