hclasvegas: Paying employees 18$$ an hour to unlock your merchandise hurts margins.

Funny, but articles of the closings don't seem to mention wages. They do mention these factors:

1.) Walgreens spent years building its business through acquisitions and neglected the fundamentals of its stores and its retail operations. That has pushed a lot of outlets into a position where they are losing sales and are not generating a return.

2.) Major drugstore chains, including CVS and Rite Aid, have struggled in recent years because of declining profits from filling prescriptions. They’ve declined because of lower reimbursement rates for prescription drugs and new competition from Amazon.

3.) The front-end of drugstores, where they sell snacks and household staples, also face pressure from larger competitors.

4.) Walgreens reported a $3 billion loss largely because of a writedown of a Chinese pharmaceutical chain and a home care provider called CareCitrix.

cnn.com - Walgreens closures earnings