WOONSOCKET, R.I. – CVS Caremark announced that it would no longer sell tobacco products at its more than 7,600 CVS/pharmacy stores across the United States by October 1, 2014.

“Ending the sale of cigarettes and tobacco products at CVS/pharmacy is the right thing for us to do for our customers and our company to help people on their path to better health,” said Larry J. Merlo, president and CEO, CVS Caremark. “Put simply, the sale of tobacco products is inconsistent with our purpose.”

NACS spoke to a number of major news outlets on how the drug-store chain’s decision would impact convenience stores and communicated a number of points:

Convenience stores are the dominant tobacco retailer: Cigarettes account for 36% of in-store sales dollars at convenience stores but only 17% of profit dollars. While cigarettes are a low-margin item, they add in-store foot traffic. Convenience stores also sell 85.6% of the cigarettes among food, drug and mass merchants, including Walmart, according to NACS State of the Industry research.

Other large retailers that have stopped selling tobacco, according to the Wall Street Journal:

• Walmart Canadian stores in 1994
• Target Corp. in 1996, citing cigarette sales as being too labor intensive.
• Wegmans Food Markets Inc. in 2008, citing “the destructive role smoking plays in health,” CEO Danny Wegman said at the time.

In November 2007, then-CVS CEO Thomas Ryan said the company was considering eventually halting the sale of cigarettes.

"We have a vision in our company to strive to improve human life, and it is a challenge around cigarettes," Ryan said at a conference. "It's a big number from a dollar standpoint...We've had internal battles and discussions. I wouldn't rule it out at some point down the road."