As many in Hawaii know by now, the Longs Drugs chain of stores have been sold to CVS Caremark Corp. for the tidy sum of $2.9 billion. Longs operates 521 stores in California, Nevada, Arizona and Hawaii. CVS indicated that it purchased Longs to increase its presence on the West Coast of the United States. All of the stores except the ones in Hawaii will be converted from Longs to CVS Pharmacy brand. Hawaii stores will retain the Longs Drugs name.
I think it is a good thing that CVS will retain Longs' identity in Hawaii. The drugstore chain has become a well established brand in Hawaii representing value and low prices, long before the big boxes of Costco and WalMart arrived. My question is how long will Longs' retain its identity before CVS somewhere down the line in 5 or 10 years decides to consolidate its brand.
Longs often has lower prices over some of its competitors like Walgreens. This week for example, Walgreens are selling Hershey's candy bars, 2 for $1. Longs selling the same bars 2 for 79¢. I've been shopping at Longs for many years and continue to do so. I hope their service and low product pricing continue.
Additional Links:
- CVS Caremark Buys Longs Drugs, Associated Press
- Longs to Keep Identity Despite Despite $2.9B Purchase, Honolulu Star-Bulletin
- Longs Drugs website
- CVS Pharmacy website
- Discussion Topic at HawaiiThreads.com
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment