Rite Aid, revisited…
Back in January, I wrote this post about Rite Aid Corporation (RAD), noting that all my neighborhood Rite Aids seemed incapable of consistently stocking mundane items like cleaning supplies and toilet paper. I referred to this phenomenon, rather snidely, as Soviet Economy Syndrome. One of these local stores was, in its former life, a pleasant, well-stocked Eckerd Drugs. I observed that as soon as Rite Aid began to fold in the Brooks Eckerd chain, that location developed the same malaise.
In honor of the unusual number of comments that post has generated over the past few months, and Rite Aid’s recent 10-K filing, an update seems appropriate.
A few days after the post went up, a huge display of attractively priced toilet paper appeared at a nearby Rite Aid. Whether this proves the power of the blogosphere or the randomness of the universe, who knows? Either way, I stocked up my bathroom. Since then, the shelves at local Rite Aids have been slightly less bare, but the problem persists. All too often I walk out of the store without the ordinary item I went in for.
All the commenters criticized the company, with the exception of one person who identified himself as a Rite Aid pharmacist. Others who said they worked at Rite Aid stores complained about low pay, low morale, and yes, low inventory. One said: “I’ve watched customer after customer leave and go to Walgreens because we’re out of stock or our pharmacy is closed. This post would be funny to me too, if my career wasn’t hooked to such an incompetent company.” (Any comments on today’s post will be held and published after Michelle returns on Wednesday.)
According to the 10-K filed last week, the company now has “a customer focused store visit guide that can be used by field management to assess the quality of customer service provided by specific stores.” Let’s hope this “store visit guide” explains that customers generally prefer having merchandise on the shelves.
In an update on the Eckerd integration, the 10-K says: “We…are well on our way to completing systems conversions in all of the acquired stores by the end of May 2008.” So maybe the chain will get its act together soon. If not, Soviet Economy Syndrome will be officially renamed. Hello, Rite Aid Syndrome.
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Posted in Tags: 10-Ks, Rite Aid |
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May 5th, 2008 at 9:07 am
I have written two e-mails to the Board of Directors – No Response. Someone once refered to them (management) as graduating from the Laurel and Hardy School of Business – I think they attended but I question that they graduated.
May 5th, 2008 at 10:29 am
as a cvs pharmacist i am deaing with poorly trained techs and a shortage of tech hours which puts an incredible strain on pharmacy operations, i will be applying to work at a near by riteaid under construction right now in the hopes of working for a more ethical corporation. cvs has totaally under trained supervisory level people (probably growing too fast). A well stocked riteaid should be able to easily compete with CVS.
May 5th, 2008 at 11:09 am
For total laughs check out the one at corner 8th Ave and
W 50th St. Right by Theater District. Once ran into fellow
Pratt grad Harvey Fierstein there. Now with all the tourists flocking in and few cashiers the lines are 20 mins. Just looking at that sent me to Food Emporium on W 49.
Also allows Duane Reade to charge higher prices too as well as buy out all the last few locally owned places.
Now the last few rent controlled and stabilized apts
are going since landlords allowed to jack up turnovers and get 2X to 3X the rent.
Even saw some poor small shopkeeper on NY about the huge increase he faces in Chelsea. Like 2300 month to something
like 13000? Neighbors & pols offering support of his kind as other smalls are forced out.
What RECESSION?
May 5th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
Made a complaint with BBB about practices in our local (formerly Brooks) Rite Aid store. Eventually received a note from BBB indicating they contacted RE twice with no response.
At least they are consistent.
May 5th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Maybe you live in a crappy neighborhood and the locals had a run on the paper…..
May 5th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
I believe many of the comments posted here could also be said about any Pharmacy-Walgreens,CVS, Target, Walmart, TAlking to their employees is no different. Underpayed low mirole and yes lost leaders are hard to find at all of the above at one time or another.
May 5th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
I have heard that the “paint & powder-coat” process (making the stores uniform since takeover) has stopped due to finances.
May 5th, 2008 at 5:22 pm
Where in New York City would going to a Rite Aid be easier than finding a Duane Reade? Seriously, there’s like one on every block near where I live.
May 6th, 2008 at 11:08 am
Comments from Southern CA:
Not many RiteAids here in SoCal (hadn’t even heard of Duane Reed). CVS seems to have the monopoly, though the customer service is quite poor. RiteAid seems to be in the lower income areas. When the areas hit a certain threshold, they seem to convert to CVS. Not sure why this is.
May 6th, 2008 at 6:57 pm
Rite Aid remains the worst managed pharmacy among the 4 in our neighborhood (upper east side). Low inventory, long check out lines, disinterested clerks. We walk the extra block to Walgreens.
May 8th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
I worked for Rite Aid many years ago and my husband has been a loyal employee for over 10 years. He has worked hard and taken on more duties and tasks (without additional pay) only to be passed over for promotion time and time again. Rite Aid always tauts the motto of “promote from within” but all of the recent promotions have been given to employees with no tenure or individuals from competing pharmacies. It makes me sick to no end the dedication my husband gives to this chain as a top notch pharmacist. He makes the same money as less qualified pharmacists that fill fewer prescriptions and who are not capable of customer service and patient care. Many people have thanked my husband endlessly for all his help and his willingness to go the extra mile to help. Because of the shortage of pharmacists in our area any pharmacist with a current license that can breath gets hired. The sad fact of the business is that there are too many holes to fill in every district and there is no longer any advantage to doing an exceptional job. With a set payscale across the board and no promotions for the dedicated and exceptional I expect that Rite Aid’s stock on wall street and with customers will not improve. While my husband is considering quitting he is exploring other options and the grass is not always greener on the other side. All of the big chains have reduced the profession of Pharmacist to a level so low that they should be ashamed of themselves.
June 26th, 2008 at 11:15 pm
Since Rite aid took over the Eckerd stores sales have dropped dramitically. Pharmacy waits are much longer. It is harder to keep stock shelves and and even when the trucks do come in you have no staff to get the merchandise out because of payroll cuts, So for them to say that sales have increased in the Eckerd stores are a severe understatement of the facts. How can you be a customer satisfaction store when all you have running these stores are a cashier and a manager So who exactly is helping these customers.????????? And they wonder why things aren’t going there way. When sales go down you don’t cut payroll you increase it to get more help in to these stores to we can make there shopping experience better.
July 9th, 2008 at 11:25 pm
I am a former employee of rite aid and I completly agree with Marie about the store needing more personnel. This company has no intention of making a difference in the local communities, providing better customer service, or taking care of their employees. Yes they do have a service improvement advisor in place. what it exactly does is beside me. I myself implemented this program on all levels in the store and got nothing but negative feedback fom the staff. The focus of corporate should be more on their prices instead of the constant creation and implementation of policies. The employees that say they enjoy their job are either darn good employees or employees who have little or no responsibilty.
July 14th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
I work for Rite Aid, currently going on 5 years with the company. All I can say is most people here are right. The pay is minimum wage, for cashiers. And shift supervisors, like me, only get paid slightly more than that. Not enough to really pride yourself on. But I really try to give Rite Aid the benefit of the doubt sometimes, cause it seems like they have good intentions, at least with the customers. Sometimes I think they have there business thing all backwards though, for instance, they must have 10 different “programs” to “help” boost morale, improve customer service and all. But they seem blind to me, how do you think morale and customer service is going to be when you give the store no hours to work with, only enough to keep it open and a giant list of things that have to be completed in a work week. Stocking Shelves, Price Changes(that never seem to go down), cycle counts, zeros, deposits, checking in vendors, planograms, clearance, cleaning the store, running photo, and doing all the paper work in between. Please! I can tell you right now, we never seem to have Time to check the whole store for out dates! I don’t agree with selling out dates either! But come on, we are expected to do all that in a week!
July 27th, 2008 at 2:25 am
It’s amazing…I work an entire eight hour shift as a cashier with just me and the manager sometimes. Not even the actual manager the assistant manager. We have two hourly assistants and one salaried manager. That’s all. One or two cashiers working at a time. We’ll have three or four associates in the day the truck comes in so we can actually load it out. It’s impossible to provide adequate customer service when you are severely undermanned.
Rite Aid, and when I say Rite Aid in this case I mean corporate, doesn’t get it. They are doing the worst possible thing they can possibly do: they are expanding too quickly, without sufficient resources to do so. They should have taken more time to strengthen its own stores, their customer service, and especially, their business model. Their business model is garbage to be quite frank. It is completely backwards. They ask for the store to have a boatload of things to be done when it’s just impossible. There’s just such a disconnect from corporate all the way down to the sales floor where I try my best to apologize to customer after customer that we don’t have items the circular promised them. They don’t understand this…they promised an item, and they fail to deliver. I can be the nicest person in all of the universe, if we do not stock properly and fail to deliver, no one will continue to shop at Rite Aid. A 19 year old college sophomore making minimum wage in myself can grasp this: but the big wigs with their MBAs apparently cannot grasp simple logic. Nice work, Rite Aid.
It’s simple: you have massive debt. What you must do: scale back. Stores close to each other must be closed. Low traffic, low profit stores must be closed. They are dragging the company down. When the company gets its proverbial feet back on the ground they can open more stores and expand. Walgreens does this: I don’t see them buying out chains on Long Island yet they still find a way to make new stores. All they do is rent out corner lots in high traffic areas. As opposed to spending billions to acquire Eckerd, formerly held by the Jean Coteu group, which was an overvalued property on the east coast. At least in New York where I am, CVS lapped Eckerd, and it is beating Rite Aid by even more thanks to Rite Aid’s faulty business model.
By scaling back, you free up more money to strengthen other Rite Aid locations. This way those locations make revenue, and alleviate the long term debt. Then you move forward and all new locations are run the way when from that point forward. The way stores are supposed to be run: honest, fully stocked, and with a large intent on customer service.
~Rite Aid Cashier making $7.25 in New York
August 9th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
I am an assistant manager of a Riteaid store and agree with what is being said here. The list of tasks to be done on a daily basis is daunting and leaves no time to properly take care of the customer. Stores are undermanned, morale is very low and sale items are never available in needed quantities. District managers treat store level management extremely poorly and emails from them are threatening and demeaning. Store managers and salaried assistants get no sick days or personal days. That is ludicrous. When a manager takes a vacation the workload on the rest of the staff is too much to handle. I don’t want to repeat what is being said here but just add my agreement that this Company leaves a lot to be desired.
January 27th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
I HAVE WORKED 20 YEARS(15 FOR OSCO DRUG -8 YEARS FOR BROOKS-AND 2 FOR RITE AID THAT BOUGHT OUT BROOKS.) EVERY YEAR I TOOK A LEAVE OF ABSENCE FROM JAN.1 TO MARCH 1, UNPAID, AND NEVER LOST MY VACATION TIME.WHEN I CAME BACK LAST YEAR I WAS INFORMED THAT BECAUSE I HAD BEEN KEYED IN WRONG I LOST MY VACATION BENEFITS.I’VE HAD TWO DIFFERENT MANAGERS TRYING TO CORRECT THIS ERROR BUT RITE AID STILL REFUSE TO GIVE ME MY VACATION MONEY.AS PAST BROOKS EMPLOYEES WE ARE GRANDFARTHERED FOR VACATION TIME WE HAVE EARNED. MAYBE BECAUSE I AM 68 THEY THINK I W0N’T FIGHT FOR MY MONEY.
March 10th, 2009 at 8:40 am
I’m not so much a Rite-Aid or even a drug store shopper. Usually take care of my needs at Target, but I work for a small business and we got our product (Diesel Energy Stix) in the Energy category in over 1400 GNC Rite Aid Stores. I took a field trip to seven Rite Aids in the Fredericksburg, VA area and I agree with you on lack of personnel and awkward store presence. Some were former Eckerds while the newer model stores were actually like being in a Duane Reade or CVS but deserted. Being behind the scenes as a company working with Rite Aid, the only thing they care about is profit. They could care less on what your product stands for no matter how awesome it is. They won’t back you up or even take time to help companies move for sales especially in today’s economic state. That is why they are shutting down hundreds of their stores now.
April 8th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
my son was an excellent employee of rite aid for over 6 years. he was asked to take a managment position several years ago. he was fired in jan after a robbery (at gun point) that took place on dec 23 08. the reason he was fired was because he did not take a deposit to the bank (400.00) the morning of the robbery. when ask why he did not take the deposit to the bank he replied “if he had gone to the bank he would have one female employee in the store by herself and he was not going to do that. now rite aid is trying to stop his unemployment and also get him to repay the unemployment he has already gotten.
June 4th, 2009 at 7:17 pm
i have been with rite aid for about two years they have no respect for their employees when my husband had surgery last year i asked to use my vacation time so i coould help him when hegot home from the hospital i was told i had no vacation time left a couple weeks later we had a assistant from another store come in i happened to ask her to check and see if i had any vacation she said i had a week vacationleft but was gonna loose it in a few days my manager lied to me so i had to depend on my mother to take care of myhusband because my manager wouldnt give me a couple days off even unpaid he said there was no one to cover!
July 20th, 2009 at 8:21 pm
I have worked for rite-aid since the transition from brooks/eckerd and before…This is the worst company I have ever worked for, and considering leaving after all the years. Of course, they would be pleased as I wouldn’t be sucking out the money for their payroll.
I work in the pharmacy. I am a tech. I see it is the same story from many of the above comments. In the pharmacy, they have cut back our hours so badly, that usually, it is just a pharmacist and a tech or cashier for most of the day. In the meantime, you have all these new rx’s coming in, the phone ringing off the hook, deliveries to take care of, not to mention all the aged rx’s in will call to be pulled and put back in stock, and then comes order day with the warehouse order coming in and with it seems to be a line of people following the delivery man in because they need there medicine, and it had to be ordered because we are out of stock. However, it is our fault because our “counts” are off. But this all doesn’t matter. They are thriving on this customer service survey where the customers must call this number on their receipt and give us a 5 rating. I don’t know if anyone has ever taken this survey, but it is about 10 minutes long. Now, as a employee, this whole program irritates me that I have to beg every customer for a “good score” on customer service. As a customer, I don’t want to be bothered with a lengthy survey, by this time, I am irritated and NO I wouldn’t be giving a high rating of 5. This whole thing is a little stupid. Instead of wasting time and money figuring out these programs, why don’t they figure out more ways to keep the stores stocked with sale items, increase hours, boost moral, along with maybe being more on the side of the employees rather then the side of some big ceo monster women that only cares about her hefty bonus. I don’t need to name names do I?
July 21st, 2009 at 9:47 pm
Rite Aid is a sinking ship. They pump money into this new workflow bullcrap program showing cashiers how to use a bag and showing managers how to unload a truck? Why not put that money into the stores? No, instead some pinhead at corporate who never ran a store in his/her life comes up with this crap.
Also, the culture change crap is a farce. Every quarter, we give a $10 gift card, to be spent in the damned store, to our best employee? What a fricking joke. Employees don’t want certificates and pats on the back, they want to be treated as human frickin beings, and get more than a 2% raise per year. Don’t even start on the Rx savings bonus program, which is stupid.
By the way, is Mary Sammons a transvestite? She sure looks and acts like one. Leads me to another topic….the in-store TV with Mary and her ‘take time’ segment is enough to make anyone wretch.
If the corporate pinheads want good customer service, then they have to free up some payroll, otherwise, it will never happen.
November 12th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
Unless I missed something, I believe no one forced anyone to take a job with RA. You sat in an interview and the interviewer told you about the pay and job detail. You then had the option of turning the job down or accepting. YOU chose to join the team. YOU chose to enter the building and fill out the application and take the quickscreen. If you have skills that exceed those needed to work at RA, YOU have the chose to make a change. Everyday that you work you can do what you agreed to do or sit and complain about how you are the best thing to come through the doors. If you don’t like something You can go into the managers office and use the Portal computer (black one used for CBT’s) and log a RACS to the CCC, don’t know what that is, ask your manager. The new RAPTAR poster can be used by associates and managers also. Change in your store starts with YOU. The worst thing for RA is an associate that is unhappy.
Hours are granted by your sales/script. If your sales/script are down you remove hours to reflect the drop. Currently we are given more hours then we should be allowed. For example, the norm is 10% times weekly sales figure (25000.00) would give you a budget of $2500 for the week (this equals about 225hrs). This same store is given 255 hours to schedule under the new structure. I believe this is an increase.
I can’t answer for your manager or pharmacy staff. I know in my store I keep an open door policy. I don’t force anyone to stay if they need to leave. I give hours out to the ones who perform and counsel those who don’t. I encourage you to put forth your best or bring your talent to another place, because if your talent is grumble, complain, stir up conflict or just being a downer, get out of the way of those who are willing to do what we were hired to do.
January 13th, 2010 at 2:52 pm
Your store may be fine and great buddy according to you…but in general, most Rite aid employees are treated poorly by uneducated management, including your pharmacists! It is a thankless company who doesn’t really give a crap about its employees! Most of us are there because of buy outs and economy and no matter how hard we work, its never good enough!! Ever!! I’ve been in pharmacy for 25 years! You are the only manager I’ve ever come in contact with thats been happy, since we’ve been through 4 in the last 5 years!! Good luck with “your rite aid”!
January 30th, 2010 at 2:50 pm
ManagerAid = PDM or just DM. Either way, a general Rite Aid subhuman retard.
February 17th, 2010 at 4:42 pm
Last year I put in a stint at RA… I have done 20+ years in drugstores. Riteaid, at least in this area has failed to invest in the stores, as least as far as front end ops go.
Registers are antiquated… a mix a a few modern touchscreens in Pharmacies, with junkers out front. They present a real training obstacle for new associates, and it seemed there was always at least one. Customer service is impaired by all voids and refunds being approved by mgt. Come a good rainstorm or thunderstorm, the satellite was knocked out, so now debits, ebts, or charges were possible.
The handhelds, antiques there too.. Slow, difficult to read, with cumbersome software for vendor check-in and about any other application.
God help if you had a Friday truck, with once a week (yuck) price changes, cycle counts, ad change-over AND delivery. The 14+ hours a day on weekends were never long enough to get it all done. And don’t forget “freshness Friday”, the initiative to help reduce all the out of dates in the stores. Mangers have no option but to do something along the way halfway.
The Portal had some semblance of helping on workload planning and ad ordering, and training, but email communications system based on some mainframe setup was pathetic. Just generating a simple email to a dm was too much of an affair. No wonder those guys relied so heavily on faxes. T
Virtually all the systems that RA had for basic front end ops were cumbersome, cut productivity, which in the new environment of hour cuts take a toll.
Throw in a leaky roof, coolers and air cond. systems well past their prime, make-do on store fixturing. No money was gonna be spent there.
For you Ra vets, my hat is off to you, if you feel your are excelling is such a poor environment. Your peer group has far better tools for virtually every task that you face every day.
February 27th, 2010 at 9:33 pm
I am upset that we are calling someone that looks at the positve movement a struggling company is trying to make and calling them names as if we are in elementry school. They are right. I have seen slow movement toward staffing our stores within our budget. It is tough. Do a corporate job for one week and see how you like it. Granted I have never held a position higher than assistant with rite aid, but anyone with eyes can see that this person speaks truthfully. Look at your profit and loss statement. Lok at what ou are running. Everything is there for you to see. Are you sending your boxes back, you just cost ra $. How about maintence of the photo machine, replacement chemicals are expensive. Is your store oderering from the ad, if your not you are causing the shortages in the warehouse and making it more difficult for our buyers to get good prices from manufactors. Are your planograms set right? they may be a pain, but those positions are paid for. you don’t compleate them accuratly and in a timely manner, our are costling the company important moneys. Look around and see all that you can do and stop complaining about what other people ar not. as for the ccc, it is a good tool, but only if it used. they are looking into the sugestions, if people would make them. Ours suggested $50 to spend in the store on whatever we wanted. The day the whole staff had chinesee for lunch was a great day for customers to be in the store. For one day we were reminded that we really do matter. And yes, use the raptar cards. My district manager has been known to send them out to his managers when they meet or exceed company standards on things like csi. They mat mock in public, but i havent seen them thrown out. they are important. One a week. try it, see what it does to your fellow workers.
June 20th, 2010 at 2:56 pm
I work for a Rite Aid in Norcal……..summer time is the busiest time for our store, we’re a tourist town. We hire people or have even borrowed staff from other stores. We have enough people working at our store now, however its making these young kids we do hire appreciate their job, now a days. We have a guy who didn’t call or come to work for quite a few days, in any other company that’s considered job abandonment. We came back to work he had the balls to complain about always being the one who has to be in the checkstand?!? talk about being grateful you even have a J O B! Had another young girl who would call in sick every Wednesday, and found out she was going into town with a bunch of her little gang bangn friends to beat up other little girls, Police called and came in looking for her at Rite Aid….but Management lets it ride. She finally quit.
So we have a few really great people who work very hard for this store and have been here for a long time, they have always abide by the rules, worked the shift they were scheduled, on time everyday, and never call in sick. So I ask, what happens to those people? what happens to those people who do their job everyday and does what theyre suppose to? what do they get? since we ” we let ride” for the idiots that are just taking up space. It seems that the people we tend to hire lately are people that have a mental issues or lack social skills! …however! we have a lot of people working both shifts. So Im not sure which is worse? having the NEW Hire Rejects? or just keeping the few good people that we do have and working them to death!?
June 20th, 2010 at 9:35 pm
Would be nice if they upped the criteria on who they higher. Having a pulse, and a clean background check isn’t enough. Tougher rules that Management has to follow if an employee screws up! warnings, write ups, and then termination! just like any other company.