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.