CVS stops selling tobacco products

CVS Health is the 12th-largest company in the world, with a profit of $10.4 billion in the most recent reporting year. But that was before they got to be all namby-pamby wusses, so yeah they'll probably close up shop tomorrow.

 

Why do I see some marketing genius turning "we don't sell cigarettes" into a sales point? And it'll probably work in some corners.

 

That's what I've been getting at, wondering if that is what drove the move in the first place. Maybe it is a combination of trying to do the right thing and using it as a sales point.

 

They probably did the math and realized that pulling out of cig sales would have no impact on the bottom line. Because they probably don't sell that much anyway and tobacco tends to be the product most likely to be shoplifted.

It also has to be an expensive product to stock. I don't smoke and don't really care if others do but I noticed on my last trip to the drug store that it was the entire back wall. Fifty different brands of cigs, Skoal, chewing tobacco, various brands of cigarillos and such.

 

If it means I don't have to stand in line behind someone buying cigarettes, I'm all for it.

I can't imagine how much of my life has burned away waiting while someone goes, "Can I get a pack of Marlboros? ... no, the hard pack ... no the red ones ... no the 100s."

 

This isn't remotely correct ...

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc1000079

These probably were not trivial considerations. The business processes involved -- ID regulations, loss prevention requirements, etc. -- likely are fairly expensive. If the profit margins of tobacco (at retail) are fairly narrow, it could easily be the case that there are plenty of alternate (and equally or more-profitable) uses of a store's square footage.

 

$1.7 billion with a B in annual tobacco sales is no small penny.

 

And usually they follow up with a complex mega ball lotto purchase.

 

Sales schmales ...

 

Forbes:

Point being it will be interesting to see how "healthcare company" recoups the B.

 

The timing is interesting. Maybe they did not want to see their
clerks assaulted over Swisher Sweet's