Walgreen cutting SKUs

Walgreen is planning to reduce the number of SKUs on its shelves, both because they think they may be confusing customers with excessive choice and because they are looking toward building smaller stores.

Walgreen wants to reduce the number of good its carries, such as multiple varieties of Tylenol, Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Rein said at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. retail conference in New York City Friday. The company is also considering opening stores that are smaller than its traditional stores in the 10,000- to 14,000-square-foot range.

While multiple varieties of the same product are one thing (not happy news for McNeil Labs to have their product singled out, is it?), I wonder if this will also be another case of a major retailer reducing the number of brands it offers.