Adding to the mail-order options within big chain pharmacy, Walmart is promising prescription delivery in as quickly as 30 minutes.
On October 22, Walmart announced the expansion of its prescription medication delivery service, which is now active in 6 states and will be available in 49 by the end of January 2025, according to a Walmart news release.1 Fueling competition centered on customer convenience, Walmart Pharmacy Delivery will join other big chain pharmacy brands—like CVS, Walgreens, and Amazon—in their efforts to expand mail-order services in the US.2
“Walmart is doing something new in a way only it can. Today, the company announced that it’s once again meeting customers at the intersection of convenience and access by expanding delivery offerings—integrating prescription medications and general merchandise into one streamlined single order for delivery,” said the company’s news release.1
Walmart currently has over 4500 locations with adjoined pharmacies on site. In a recent survey, Walmart asked their customers how the company could better serve them and 55% responded with prescription medication delivery services. With the company’s reach and ability to deliver to over 86% of US households, Walmart became yet another pharmacy brand to establish mail-order services.1
The biggest selling-point for the company’s newest offering is quick convenience. Using the company’s official website or the Walmart app, customers can schedule on-demand delivery of both their medications and groceries, or any other necessary Walmart product they may choose to include in their delivery. After scheduling with just the touch of a button, customers can expect their orders to arrive same day in as fast as 30 minutes.
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Discussing the industry-wide implications Walmart’s new service carries, the company’s recent announcement puts pressure on its competitors, who have been feeling the squeeze of a declining big chain pharmacy industry. The largest big chain pharmacy in the country is CVS, a brand with plans of cutting 2900 corporate jobs and closing over 1000 locations from 2018 through 2024 and beyond. Walgreens also announced just this month that it’s planning to shut down 1200 locations.3
Another company set to face Walmart’s prescription delivery competition is Amazon, who introduced medication delivery services to its Prime members back in 2020.
“Amazon Pharmacy plans to open pharmacies in 20 new cities across the US in 2025, more than doubling the number of cities where customers can get same-day delivery of their medications. Amazon is leveraging its vast logistics network and advanced automation technology to solve one of pharmacy’s biggest pain points: the lack of convenient, affordable access to medications,” according to an Amazon news release earlier this month.4
Of course, CVS and Walgreens pharmacies have already begun mail-order prescription services. With 4 big-box pharmacy brands settling into the mail-order pharmacy space, all pharmacy storefronts, whether retail or independent, are now in dire straits. Indeed, the J.D. Power 2024 US Pharmacy study showed that overall satisfaction with brick-and-mortar pharmacies has declined, while mail-order satisfaction is on the rise.5
“The critical link that may allow brick-and-mortar pharmacies to keep pace with the rise of mail order and digital pharmacies is the familiarity that customers have with their pharmacist,” said Christopher Lis, managing director of global health care intelligence at J.D. Power. “This is a big differentiator that brick-and-mortar pharmacies need to closely monitor, as 52% of customers are now aware of digital pharmacies, most notably, Amazon Pharmacy. Customers need pharmacies to deliver on convenience, reliability, and trust—and mail order and digital pharmacies are working to meet those expectations.”
As big chain brands begin to adjust to a dynamic pharmacy industry, experts agree that independent pharmacies serving local communities will be left behind. Pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) are known as prescription drug middlemen who work between drug manufacturers, insurance plans, and pharmacies to deliver medications to patients.6 PBMs have come under scrutiny in the past few years for their opaque dealings and conflicts of interests, actions that have caused declining reimbursements and a third of independent pharmacy owners to consider shutting their doors in 2024.7
“Vertically integrated with their own mail-order pharmacies, PBMs helped increase mail-order industry sales from $100 million in 1981 to $1.5 billion by 1989. As mail-order pharmacies expanded, concerns regarding conflicts of interests and generic dispensing rate differences led the US Congress to request a study of this issue. While mail-order pharmacy has become synonymous with PBM ownership, prescription delivery has been a common practice for more than half a century,” wrote authors of a study published in JAMA Health Forum.6
The well-established pharmacy brands like CVS, Walgreens, and Walmart have had the infrastructure to build up their mail-order services over the years. Now, with the help of technology and the internet, those services are becoming even easier for companies to manage and more convenient for consumers to access nationwide. But with so much change at the top of the industry, smaller players in the marketplace, like independent pharmacists, are being left out to dry.
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