October 17th, 2023, Hoang Nguyen
Rite Aid, one of the largest drug stores and pharmacy chains in the US, just filed for bankruptcy over the weekend. In addition to being billions of dollars in debt, Rite Aid is being sued for allegedly filling thousands of illegal painkiller prescriptions, entangling the company in the opioid crisis.
A new analysis from YouGov looking at consumer perceptions towards Rite Aid reveals several insights to take away about Rite Aid and the challenges it’s facing. Let’s jump in:
1. Consumers seem to have soured on Rite Aid in recent years
Index (a measure of overall brand health taking into account several areas of consumer perception) has been on the decline for the brand every year since 2021. Rite Aid’s average Index score in 2023 so far sits at 8.5 points compared to its score of 11 in 2021.
Impression (whether a consumer has a positive or negative impression of a brand) has also taken hit, falling from 15.6 in 2021 to 12.6 in 2023.
The sentiment of conversations occurring around Rite Aid has been trending towards negative territory. The pharmacy store’s net Buzz score, which measures whether a consumer has heard anything positive or negative about a brand in the past two weeks, has been declining since 2021.
2. Consideration for Rite Aid currently trails that of the overall sector
In 2023, 10.9% of all US consumers say they would consider shopping at Rite-Aid's the next time they are in the market for goods. This is significantly lower than Consideration scores for overall department stores, drug stores and pharmacies sector (15.1%).
3. Customers of Rite Aid are willing to consider some of its biggest rivals
Rite Aid closed hundreds of stores since 2021 and consumers likely looked elsewhere to get the products and medicine they need. This year, current customers of Rite Aid are most likely to consider shopping at Walmart (57%), Target (50.2%), CVS (37.9%), Costco (34.6) and Walgreens (30.6%).
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