2025 Retailers To Watch: Walgreens
It’s been another banner year for private label as retailers ranging from the biggest mass merchants to grocery stores, convenience store chains, drug stores, and department stores expanded their respective own brand assortments.
The conversation in 2024 evolved from one that was focused on price to retailers now regularly talking about the value proposition of their store brand products and using their proprietary assortments to differentiate from the competition.
With 2025 expected to see more private brand development, Store Brands has highlighted 10 Retailers To Watch in the coming year. The following retailers in 2024 expanded their own brand product assortments, with more expected from each in the next 12 months.
Walgreens
Overview
As with its drug store competitors, Walgreens continues evolving to maintain and further strengthen its position in the crowded health & wellness space. Broadly, the company in 2024 has reduced store count while also looking to develop new ways to enhance the customer experience.
One such way to make shopping its stores more pleasurable while differentiating from the competition is the enhancement of its private label offerings.
What To Watch
In June, Walgreens CEO Tim Wentworth said the retailer would be taking a series of actions and making investments to enhance the experience for its customers. As part of this effort, the company is reevaluating its assortment to ensure the relevancy of the products it carries, leveraging select partners and its own brands.
“This means we will work with fewer partners who are helping us win,” Wentworth said earlier this year. “We’ve removed eight national brands and redeployed those SKUs toward own brands and preferred partners within health and wellness categories.”
While Walgreens, as of press time, has offered few specifics on its effort to remake its product assortment and focus on private brands, there have been some clues throughout the year.
The first is Walgreens’ expansion of its Nice! brand with the debut of the Nice! For You line of products, which the retailer positions as a “new tier” for the private brand.
According to the company, Nice! For You products do not contain artificial flavors, artificial sweeteners, synthetic dyes, or high-fructose corn syrup. Many Nice! For You options are also organic and gluten-free, which is stated on the packaging.
The second is the expansion of Walgreens’ own brand assortment of beauty products with the launch of a premium skincare line the drug store chain is touting as premium quality products without a premium price tag. The assortment sold under the Walgreens brand includes a variety of products including cleansers, exfoliants, serums, creams, and masks.
By enhancing its assortment of exclusive, affordable products across health, wellness, beauty, and grocery categories, Walgreens is competing more effectively with other major retailers, both in the traditional and online spaces. Shoppers are seeking more affordable alternatives, and the retailer is meeting this demand with high-quality private label offerings. How it builds on this effort in 2025 will be something worth watching.
