In alt.home.repair, on Sat, 7 Sep 2019 21:43:44 -0400, Ed Pawlowski
wrote:

On 9/7/2019 8:30 PM, micky wrote:
OT Big increase in the number of drugstores


Is it just Baltimore or is it the whole country, or something in between
that, 10 or 20 years ago, had a big increase in the number of
drugstores?

All of a sudden they were building them everywhere. Tearing down other
stores to build branches of national chains.

Did this happen where you are?

How many years ago?

Why? Does anyone know why?

It's not likely there were suddently so many more people getting medical
care.


If you look closely, at the same time all the mom & pop pharmacies were
closing up. They could not keep up with the evolving technology and
ability of chains to buy cheap in volume.

I hadn't been here long enough to know where the mom & pop ones were,
but I guess so. Last summer one closed. It was in a very expensive
n'hood and they delivered and maybe other stuff so I guess they were
able to charge enough to keep going. i can't remember how old the
owner, the son or grandson of the original owner, was.

Drugs aside, many could not afford the computers and links to the
insurance companies, medicare, etc. Billing is more complicated than it
was years ago. It takes a lot of equipment and costly programs to do
all of that and if you amortize it over a large chain versus one store,
it is much cheaper per unit.

Add in an aging population taking more drugs, the market is there to
support it.

Okay, you both said that and it makes sense.

One of my n'bors on Next Door seemed to think it was just our n'hood,
and complained that there were so many and so many gas stations (but
there are no more gas statinos than there ever were (those I can keep
track of)) but I saw it throughout Baltimore. I'll tell 'em it's
everywhere.