By now you’ve heard that Illinois-based Walgreens is buying out local rival Duane Reade. Maybe you’re shedding a tear at the news, but before you go out and buy tissues, which store is likely to have a better price on them?
Good news, New Yorkers: Walgreens prices beat Duane Reade (slightly) in our check of 15 essential (and some not-so-essential) items, and the overall price for our trip to Walgreens was about $30 cheaper. The companies said Duane Reade’s 257 stores will keep operating under their name after the buyout, but consolidation is inevitable.
Our undercover price scoping took us behind the automatic doors at the Williamsburg Duane Reade on North 5th and the Walgreens on Union Ave. While the price differences were often minor, Walgreens offers a wider variety of generic products, a noisier store, and a security-protected deodorant case to ward off obsessive-compulsive (and sweaty) kleptomaniacs. And while Duane Reade is unarguably the more aesthetically appealing of the two stores, it fails to have such necessities as the Inspire Waterproof Rubber Sheet Protector and the famed “As Seen on TV” and celebrity perfume aisles (Walgreens graces its floors with FOUR different varieties of Celine Dion fragrances). Check out the results of the study after the jump, with each round’s winner in blue. Read the rest of this entry »
