I don't know that reading an earnings call transcript is going to give you the real story if you don't have enough background to read between the lines.
"For the third quarter, we delivered adjusted earnings per share of $0.63, reflecting significant challenges in the U.S. Retail Pharmacy business stemming from a worse than expected consumer environment and challenging pharmacy industry trends, partially offset by strength in U.S. healthcare and international."
That could be inflation and a consumer that is running out of gas. Could also mean "we suck at retail right now but it's better to blame the amorphous 'consumer environment'".
But there is also:
"In U.S. Retail Pharmacy, we witnessed continued pressure on the U.S. consumer."
" We expect the operating environment to remain challenging. We do not expect an improvement in the U.S. retail environment."
"Turning next to our U.S. retail business, comparable retail sales declined 2.3% in the quarter. As Tim mentioned, the consumer backdrop remains a challenge. With this continued channel shift and a sustained pullback in discretionary spending..."
Those are all comments consistent with inflation sucking the wind out of consumers and I'm sure there are more, although you'd need somebody that pays more attention to Walgreens to say for sure.
One thing that is barely mentioned at all as far as I can tell is shoplifting. The only statement I can find is:
"While we're seeing early signs of customers responding to our actions, retail gross margin declined more than previously anticipated due to our price and promo investments this year lapping last year's margin recovery actions as well as higher levels of shrink."
I suspect that is a pretty big issue for them at some of their locations right now yet they aren't going to give details on that in an earnings call. Just too touchy. It does talk about roughly 25% of their stores being deadweight right now. Certainly lots of those are probably too close to other locations without enough population to justify it. But I suspect a good number of those stores are also in jurisdictions where shoplifting is no longer adequately prosecuted. But again, you'd need somebody that pays more attention to Walgreens to really know how to interpret those statements and also to know what information they are leaving out.
