Customers already visit CVS for vaccinations, prescriptions and to take care of a range of other pharmacy-related errands. Soon, customers may be going there for full primary care visits as well. Do you see large numbers of Americans eventually having their primary care needs met in retail pharmacies?

Walgreens last week announced plans to focus on primary care, post-acute care and home care as part of a new Walgreens Health growth strategy. What do you think of Walgreens’ opportunity to support primary care, post-acute care and home care needs?

Testimony in the criminal trial of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes paints a picture of major retailers willing to take a vendor’s word without engaging in the type of due diligence required to vet those claims. What responsibilities do you think retailers need to take for the products they sell and the services they offer?

While wage hikes amid a tight labor market are expected to contribute to higher prices for consumers, a new study finds a favorable tradeoff in higher levels of customer service. Do you see the productivity gains resulting from higher wages largely offsetting the related expenses for many retailers?

Walgreens announced on Monday the launch of its new myWalgreens Credit Card program, which features two “industry-first retail health and wellness credit cards.”  Are the financial benefits or the consumer data derived from credit card usage linked to loyalty programs of greater value to retailers?

Walgreens announced that it completed moving 122 enterprise resource planning (ERP) apps to the cloud in May. Has moving enterprise resource planning to the cloud become a business necessity for retailers and consumer-direct brands?

Either sales and earnings at Walgreens and the other major U.S. drugstore chains are poised to get a lot healthier or are they going to take a turn for the worse as the pandemic wanes. What challenges does Walgreens face going forward and does it have the right plan in place to achieve growth?

Walgreens has put a full selection of its products on the menu for same-day delivery through Uber Eats across the U.S. How important will delivery options become within the pharmacy space for both prescription and front of store sales?

Will Amazon take its pharmacy business from a purely online operation into physical store locations? It is, at the very least, mulling the possibility of this next step, according to reports. Do you think Amazon can effectively run brick-and-mortar pharmacies and compete in the markets where it opens them?

There’s a battle going on in San Francisco between retailers and organized retail crime, and the thieves are winning so convincingly that stores are closing their doors. What are retailers and others doing to address the issue and what else needs to be done to thwart this criminal activity in a substantial way?

Starbucks is using technology to make trips to get coffee more customer friendly for those who are blind or have otherwise compromised vision. Should solutions like the one Starbucks is using to help blind and low-vision customers shop become standard practice in retail stores and foodservice establishments?

CVS recently announced the rollout of a medical alert system to meet senior customers’ healthcare needs in their homes. Do you think CVS and other retail pharmacies will succeed with in home tech services?

Nursing home residents and staff have been among the hardest hit populations since the pandemic broke out in 2020. Yet 60 percent of those working in nursing homes and 20 percent of residents say they would refuse the vaccine. Do you think vaccine reluctance will dissipate as more and more Americans are immunized against COVID-19?

Walgreens Boots Alliance has reached a deal with Rosalind Brewer to join the company as its new chief executive officer, replacing Stefano Pessina who announced last summer that he would move to executive chairman of the company’s board once his replacement was found. What do you expect Rosalind Brewer to bring to her role as CEO of Walgreens?

With the FDA’s emergency approval late Friday of a vaccine co-developed by Pfizer, the nation is now counting on retail to help execute the nation’s most ambitious vaccination campaign in history. What will be the obvious and less obvious challenges facing retailers in their role administering COVID-19 vaccinations?

Walgreens has rolled out its first advertising network, promising first-party data insights into more than 100 million members of the MyWalgreens loyalty program.  What do you think of the potential appeal to the advertising community of Walgreens’ new advertising network?

Forty-seven percent of Americans surveyed are not confident in the level of medical care they would receive from a retail in-store clinic, according to a new study. What can retailers with in-store clinics do to build trust in their medical service offerings?

Walgreens announced a complete reinvention of its customer loyalty program yesterday. Will the introduction of myWalgreens and 30-minute pickup be a competitive difference maker for the retailer?

While the novel coronavirus pandemic has been rough on retail as a whole, retailers in specific segments have found opportunities. One of those retailers is CVS. How can CVS hang on to first-time customers that came in for a COVID-19 test?

Rivals CVS, Kroger, Target, Walgreens and Walmart have joined together in a consortium focused on finding a better, more eco-friendly solution to America’s plastic bag waste problem.. Do you think a consortium such as this can be successful in finding a sustainable alternative to plastic bag use?

The doctor is in at Walgreens. The pharmacy chain announced yesterday that it has reached an agreement with VillageMD to locate between 500 and 700 primary care doctor’s offices in its stores over the next five years. How much of an effect will the widespread launch of the Village Medical at Walgreens concept have on the drugstore retailer’s business?

Retailers are starting to open drive-thru COVID-19 testing sites to the public for the first time. Are they ready? What challenges do you expect retailers to face rolling out COVID-19 testing?

Walgreens pharmacists have complained of being overwhelmed with work to the point of making errors, but a report seems to indicate that this was a message the retailer wanted to keep hidden from the public. Will customer faith in Walgreens be compromised in light of this reporting?

Retailers rose to the top of the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s eighteenth annual “Corporate Equality Index” report, which rates workplaces on their policies and treatment of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer employees. What do you see as the current state of LGBTQ affairs within the retailing industry?

The Kroger Co. and Walgreens have formed a new group purchasing organization (GPO), Retail Procurement Alliance, which further expands joint efforts between the supermarket and drugstore powerhouses. How will the joint procurement deal between Kroger and Walgreens benefit the two companies, and what will it mean for competition?

Walgreens announced earlier this week that it was working with Jenny Craig to bring its health and weight loss management services to 100 stores in 20 states across the country beginning in January. Do you think Walgreens is on the right track working with third-parties rather than offering its own in-house health and wellness services?

The relationship between Kroger and Walgreens is going to the next level. The two retail giants have announced plans to expand a pilot program that places Kroger Express store-within-a-store shops inside Walgreens to 35 more locations. Where do you see the Kroger/Walgreens pilot program going?

Looking to become America’s most loved beauty destination, Walgreens has launched health and beauty offerings to better serve oncology patients from the inside out. What role does empathy, if any, play in retail sales and customer service?

Facial recognition technology has many practical applications. But while these use cases seem reasonable to most people, not everyone is enamored with facial recognition technology or how it’s being used. Are the benefits of facial recognition technology more trouble than they are worth for retailers?

Some big retailers are working with a startup that’s putting a 21st century twist on a classic method of making packaging reusable — a pick-up service akin to the one used by the mid-20th century milkman. What factors will determine if customers make the decision to sign up for a service like Loop?

Walgreens has announced it will provide mental health first aid training for pharmacists and other team members. Do you expect the role that pharmacists play to continue to expand into different areas of health?

Rite Aid and Walgreens are a half-step ahead of expected federal legislation that will prohibit the sale of tobacco based on age. Will Rite Aid and Walgreens derive business benefits from each chain’s announcement regarding age prohibitions on the sale of tobacco and vaping products?

CVS yesterday has announced that it can make deliveries to customers within hours of prescriptions being filled. The drugstore chain is working with Target-owned Shipt to make deliveries from 6,000 CVS locations across the U.S. Do you expect the demand for home delivery of prescription medicines to grow significantly over the next decade?

Walgreens is piloting a line of “smart coolers” with the ability to display targeted ads to in-store shoppers. How do you expect customers in Walgreens to respond to the Cooler Screens technology?

Move over CVS and hold on Amazon.com, Walgreens last week announced a partnership with FedEx on the nationwide launch of a next-day prescription delivery service. Does Walgreens gain much of an advantage in prescription delivery with its partnership with FedEx?

Kroger and Walgreens have provided more details on the 13-store pilot program the two chains announced in October. What does dedicating one-third of its selling space to Kroger Express say about Walgreens’ future prospects?

CVS has been clear that its primary focus is that of a provider of health services and products. Now the drugstore chain is looking to bring that concept to life. What can CVS do to differentiate its health services concept from Walgreens’ new concept and vice versa?

Walgreens announced that it will be opening medical testing facilities in 600 of its stores in conjunction with LabCorp, according to Bloomberg. Is improving in-store healthcare services the right move for Walgreens to make?

Walgreens has secured a minority investment in Birchbox and plans to pilot the monthly beauty subscription service in 11 of its stores. Do you think the in-store Birchbox experience likely work in most Walgreens locations?