Forget Rite Aid, another struggling drugstore closing down stores

If you thought 2024 was a brutal year for retailers, get ready for 2025.

Though we're less than halfway through a new year, 2025 is expected to be one of the worst on record for retailers by the sheer number of expected closures.

A report by Coresight estimates that the number of store closures will increase in 2025 by up to 335%.

That amounts to a total of 15,000 total closures.

The reason for many of these closures can be broken into three major categories:

Liquidations: all stores shuttering
Chapter 11 bankruptcies: retailers restructuring, closing most or many stores
Total remakes: large retailers doing complete pivots on strategy and footprint

We've already seen some pretty big-name retailers suddenly fold, leaving customers in a lurch.

Forever 21 filed for bankruptcy in March 2025, closing all of its more than 300 stores across the U.S.

Craft store Joann Fabrics also filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in January; all of its stores are closing, too.

And pharmacy chain Rite Aid filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May 2025.

Walgreens is closing more stores.

Image source: Nicholson/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Pharmacies are struggling in 2025

Rite Aid has been facing challenges for a while.

The now-bankrupt drugstore was a household name in the New York area. At its height, it had about 4,600 stores across the U.S., though its fall from grace was equally monumental.

Now, the drugstore has just 1,200 stores that it's currently winding down.

Its May 2025 bankruptcy represents its second filing in two years. It also filed for bankruptcy in October 2023.

More closings:

But Rite Aid is hardly the only pharmacy struggling in the U.S.

CVS is in the midst of closing over 250 stores. And Walgreens is in the process of going private.

The issues that plagued Rite Aid are common among all the big chains.

It's not that Americans are on fewer prescriptions. Instead, they're getting their drugs from more convenient places. They might get prescriptions delivered or pick them up during a routine grocery run.

And pharmacies are extremely vulnerable to theft, since they carry a lot of other non-prescription inventory like snacks, personal care products, and over-the-counter medicine.

This cuts into profits and forces them to lock things up, which in turn wards off honest customers who are unmotivated to call for help when they need to make a purchase.

Top drugstore closing more stores

This is part of the reason Walgreens is going private.

As it prepares for the transition, the Illinois-based drugstore is closing down stores that are either unprofitable or no longer viewed as critical to the company's mission.

Walgreens announced it will shutter up to 1,200 stores over the next three years in an effort to turn around business.

And now, it will close down just under 30 locations during the month of May.

The closures will take place across the country in 13 states, clustered mostly around the east coast.

The stores expected to close are: