Tons of good PR, more high-margin pharmacy business and a truckload of new customers eyeing your rock-bottom prices on socks and light bulbs--what's not to like? Apparently happy with the progress of its $4 generic drug program in Florida, Wal-Mart is rolling the program out on a much larger scale, expanding it to 1,264 stores in Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Texas and Vermont. Wal-Mart has dramatically sped up its timeline for the national rollout, which was scheduled to begin in early 2007. Wal-Mart stepped up the program from one Florida region to the entire state less than two weeks ago, a large expansion in and of itself. Since the rollout across Florida on October 6, customers there have filled have filled 88,234 generic prescriptions, the company said. As it has proceeded with its generics campaign, Target has matched it blow by blow, offering to meet Wal-Mart's generics pricing in markets where Wal-Mart is offering the $4 deal. I wonder if Target can keep this up if Wal-Mart pulls out all of the stops? Observers think the drugstore chains have more to worry about; CVS shares fell 8.4 percent when Wal-Mart's generics plan was originally announced.
To keep up with the continuing cheap generics saga:
- read the Wal-Mart release
- see Target's release on keeping up with Wal-Mart