I’d like to move all my business away from Walmart, and their pharmacy is one service we use often.
While I know there are “lesser evils” than Shoppers, they are walking distance away, and that’s important to me.
Can anyone share their experience with Shoppers for their pharmacy, and even better would be from anyone who’s switched from Walmart Pharmacy to Shoppers.
Thanks in advance.
Our local shoppers pharmacy billed our insurer for medicines we didn’t pickup. We switched to a closer pharmacy, but shoppers decided to fill the prescriptions anyway and bill them. Took me a few months to realize, but reported it to the insurer since it was fraud. And it would count against insurance payouts at our desired place.
I stay away from the big pharma companies. I use a little family owned pharmacy and get a good deal and support a local business.
Also consider independent or small-chain pharmacies. I’m spoiled for choice in downtown Toronto, there are a handful within a few minute walk. The one I picked (because it was the closest) was super friendly and convenient. Even though they have shorter hours I can walk in and be out with my prescription in literally 30 seconds. If I have questions I can call and someone picks up the phone. On top of this way better service they have never charged beyond my insurance’s coverage, so I haven’t paid a dime out of pocket.
If you can this is definitely the way to go.
Yes, I’ll be in touch with one tomorrow. I’d much rather support a local, independent, Canadian pharmacy over any corporately owned one!
If you’re considering changing pharmacies and even partially pay for your drugs, make sure to look up their dispensing fees. They can vary significantly between pharmacies and provinces, and at least in my town and province, Shoppers Drug Mart is one of the more costly ones.
For sure. Walmart is in the middle (Costco is the least expensive), but Shoppers is on the higher end. Not sure what the independent pharmacy charges until I speak with them, but hopefully it’s no more than what Walmart was charging.
Shoppers was pretty inept when we were using them. Frequent errors and constantly having to argue with the manager because my 100% insurance coverage wouldn’t cover some meds because the pharmacy wanted a bigger profit than insurance was willing to pay.
We finally transferred to the pharmacy at Save On Foods and they’ve been pretty solid.
Ultimately it comes down to the pharmacy manager and their standards. I don’t think a particular chain is going to be any better than any other one across the board.
That sucks.
Looks like the independent pharmacy may be my best option. Even the ratings are 4.8 stars vs 2.x with Shoppers. LOL
Stay away from Shoppers or any Loblaws pharmacy, I understand it is Canadian and has better hours than many locally owned pharmacies however I have heard many horror stories (I have had difficulties with them to) on the Reddit group r/loblawsisoutofcontrol. There is a group on lemmy under c/loblawsisoutofcontrol as well but it is much smaller and not as active.
I agree its probably better to go with a smaller mom and pop pharmacy if you have one or one associated with your drs office. Or Costco
Continuing your point, for alternatives that are not Loblaws owned, there’s:
- London Drugs
- Rexall
- Pharmasave
- Guardian/I.D.A./Remedy’sRx
- Jean-Coutu/Metro/Food Basics Pharmacy (owned by Metro grocery store chain)
for Canadian owned and operated chains of pharmacies. There are definitely many independent ones under other logos and brands, and some other ones outside the provinces I’m familiar with.
London Drugs. Is that one of those “if it sounds English or French, it’s probably Canadian”?
Yes lol
I do get it. I’ve avoided shopping at Loblaws owned stores for years, but now I have to decide where to divert my money from an American company (Walmart) to a Canadian one.
I’ve got two choices for walkable pharmacies in my area (this is important), one is Shoppers, and the other is a small pharmacy that’s quite a bit less convenient to get to, but their hours suck, and that would make it far too much trouble to even get prescriptions.
Every other pharmacy that isn’t owned by Loblaws (or Walmart) is far too out of the way, so I have to pick an evil American corp or an evil Canadian one. ☹️ I’ll look into those horror stories, as it could be a deal-breaker. I’ve had issues with Walmart (i.e. showing up after they said the order is ready, and it was not), but then I’ve also read negative reviews from small pharmacies, too.
Edit: It looks like the local pharmacy may offer free shipping, so I’ll get in touch with them when they are open tomorrow and see what their dispensing fees are like so I can compare. This might be the best option, and it’s independently owned. 👍
I totally understand and appreciate that, the only pharmacy I could easily walk to/get to is a shoppers. However since 2020 many if not most pharmacies in at least my city have kept up with deliveries. Check out if there are better than Shoppers pharmacies in your area that do delivery.
As I write this I realize the delivery was probably happening prior to 2020, for the old folks.
Shoppers treats their pharmacists like they’re robots, and worse, pressures them to upsell services that customers don’t need, and cheat on billing. They give the pharmacists low budgets and make it hard to hire staff,and thus the staff are overworked. Every good pharmacist I’ve ever known at a shoppers has left and started their own pharmacy.
Personally, I’ve directly found my local Shoppers pharmacy wasn’t pleasant, with rude treatment, and not taking time to listen to my concerns or questions. Plus Shoppers is the most expensive place by far (except maybe 7-eleven) to buy almost anything that isn’t steeply discounted on sale, and their dispensing fees specifically are super high.
I can see your predicament but I would try the small pharmacy. You might end up appreciating the more personal touch and taking the sacrifice of the less convenient hours. Even better, try talking to the pharmacist about it. They might even have a way to accommodate you. It I find I only need to go to the actual pharmacy now for pickups, but even then I like talking to my pharmacist so I’ll walk over. (I’m fortunate to have many many options in walking distance.)
Note that I’m not even totally anti-Loblaw. I will go out of my way to walk to No Frills to get the lower-priced No Name products and other (on sale, usually) deals. And I find the staff at No Frills to be super friendly and helpful.
I just really don’t like the shoppers pharmacy and would highly recommend avoiding it.
Just call your dr and ask them to redirect prescriptions to Shoppers. Done, dont overthink it yo. Good on you for voting with your wallet
