The country's largest drugstore chain, Walgreen
Express accounted for 12.5% of Walgreen prescriptions filled during January of last year. The company's decision to drop Express was a major hit for Walgreen, whose total pharmacy sales dropped 6% during January 2012. Take a look at the annual percentages and the loss seems even greater. Express pulled in about $5 billion in business for Walgreen each year.
Now that Walgreen stores will no longer fill prescriptions for these customers, patients in the Express network are forced into the arms of Walgreen competitors. Which could mean more pharmacy sales for CVS Caremark
Walgreen is attempting to keep these customers in its stores by signing them up for the company's new Prescription Savings Club. Walgreen said it had a record 125,000 customers sign up for the program in the first week of 2012. Still, I think this is only the beginning of what should be a difficult year for the company as it struggles to maintain customers and cut costs. Click here to use The Motley Fool's free Watchlist to track these drugstore stocks in the year ahead.
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