24-hour Walmarts cutting hours. All chains trying to match supply to demand
Walmart, the nation’s largest grocer, announced that, starting Sunday night, it will close its 24-hour stores for parts of the day to “help ensure associates are able to stock the products our customers are looking for and to perform cleaning and sanitizing.”
All-night Walmarts will now be 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. Walmarts, according to the website announcement. Stores already on reduced hours will remain on those hours.
Southeastern Grocers, the parent of the Winn-Dixie, Fresco Y Mas, Harvey’s and Bi-LO chains, announced its stores will start closing at 9 p.m. on Monday for the same reason.
As people prepared for social-distancing to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus or self-quarantine by those who think they might or know they do have COVID-19, product demand exceeded even preparations for hurricanes and blizzards. Social media have teemed with shots of empty retail shelves for almost two weeks, but there’s also a question of drug supply.
Many drugs, prescription and over-the-counter, are made overseas or at least have active ingredients made overseas. Combine that with advice to stock up on meds before laying low and 22 medications were on Wednesday’s FDA drug-shortage report.
The Walgreens at Northwest Seventh Street and 17th Avenue in Miami was devoid of toilet paper, paper towels, thermometers, and thermometer accessories and had been out of hand sanitizer for almost two weeks. Walgreens spokesman Alex Brown acknowledged the run on products had caused “temporary shortages” and said customers could call local Walgreens stores to check on product availability.
But as for medications, Brown said, they’re able to meet customer demands for over-the-counter and prescription medications.
Walmart said via email, “We are not aware of any prescription shortages” when asked about prescription and over-the-counter drugs.
Joseph Goode, spokesman for CVS, which also owns the Navarro Pharmacy chain, acknowledged product shortages but said CVS’ supply chain “includes hundreds of small, medium and large suppliers, providing us considerable flexibility and adaptability” and they’re adding new suppliers in some areas.
Reasons stated by Walmart repeat Publix’s stated reasons for going to 8 p.m. store closings, which began Saturday night. Shoppers cleaned the meat off the shelves at a Publix in Parkland and one in Miami Beach by Saturday morning.
Walmart stated, “our supply chain and trucking fleet will continue to move products and deliver to stores on their regular schedules” but didn’t say those daily deliveries would have the same amount of product.
As for Publix, Director of Communication Maria Brous emailed Saturday night, “It would be difficult to determine when the supply chain would return to the norm, as the pandemic continues to drive changes daily in and out of our sector.
“We continue to make daily deliveries to our stores, and we adjusted store closing time to allow our associates the time needed to restock and conduct preventive cleaning measures. We continue to impose limits to allow us the opportunity to serve the most number of customers.”
This story was originally published March 15, 2020 at 1:58 PM.
