Customers won’t spend as much in your pharmacy, or may not even walk through your door, if it looks scruffy and disorganised. Lynne Armstrong, Numark’s director of marketing, shares some tips to smarten up your shop and boost sales

Whether your pharmacy is a busy dispensing business, service driven or mainly over-the-counter focused, some pharmacists are guilty of ignoring the key things that drive customers into their pharmacy – their ‘shop’ front. This includes their retail business and customer service.

Customer service starts before your customers enter your pharmacy. The pharmacy environment is critical for enticing customers in, as it is the showcase for your entire business offering.

Your retail environment communicates a message to existing and potential customers about how your business operates – is it clear and tidy, focusing on medicines, services and advice, or is it overstocked and dark with no signs of a pharmacy offering other than dispensing prescriptions?

How to keep customers

Research conducted by Numark tells us that eight out of 10 patients would not use your pharmacy to pick up a prescription if your retail environment isn’t up to standard. If your retail environment isn’t inviting, how many prescriptions could you be losing out on from potential customers?

Your potential customers are probably used to shopping in major supermarkets that have attractive surroundings. They are used to only choosing between one or two brand leaders and one own brand.

They know where to find products and which products are brand leaders or beacon brands – they are retail savvy and understand merchandising and marketing. As such, for many independent pharmacies, we need to raise our standards to match our communities’ expectations.

The following pharmacy environment advice can be actioned by your staff relatively quickly, simply, and in most cases at minimal cost:

• First of all, walk out of the front door of your pharmacy, cross the road and take a look at what you are faced with. Do you like it? If you were a patient/customer would you go in?

If the answer is no, change what is obvious. Don’t just do this once – do it once a month, or at least once a quarter.

• Clean and clear your windows and doors – too many messages in your window creates confusion and can give the appearance that your pharmacy is disorganised.
• Use gondola ends for promotional displays and, where possible, make sure they can be seen through the window. This portrays that you are price competitive and helps to dispel the myth that pharmacy is an expensive place to shop.
• Remove all hand-written point of sale and dayglo stars – customers expect to see these in pound shops, at car boot sales and flea markets. They do not expect to see them in pharmacy, as they do not promote a professional image.
• Ensure products and shelving is clean and dust-free at all times. Dusty products indicate to customers that they are nearly out of date and they won’t purchase them. It also portrays a lack of interest in your business and your customers.
• Face all products forward at the end of each day or first thing in the morning. The appearance of a full shelf is much more appealing than one that looks like you are selling the last product in the range.
• Ensure there are no gaps on the shelves, perform regular stock audits and have replacement stock to hand.
• Limit the numbers of items you stock – too much stock confuses customers and they may walk away without making a purchase. The optimum number of products in pharmacy is about 2,000. Most independents stock 6,000 – you are wasting money on these. You have the benefit of receiving twice-daily deliveries from your wholesalers – if you haven’t got it, you can get it within the day. This is another service that you offer over and above your grocery competition. Use it as a service.
• Don’t just sell products – sell complete solutions! If you are selling a cold remedy, why not offer tissues as well? Or if someone is coming in regularly with a common complaint such as cracked lips, if you aren’t selling them lipcare, you aren’t offering a complete solution. Talk to them about their diet – are they suffering from a vitamin deficiency – this is advice they won’t get from a grocer.
• Don’t crowd aisles – no display is effective unless the customer can see and reach it. It can be also a health and safety hazard.
• Use your counter staff to encourage sales. A simple, “your prescription will be about five minutes, please take a look around the shop while you wait,” may just encourage people to wait around and purchase. If 10 people are told this and five actually do it, two may purchase – that’s two additional sales.
• Use your counter staff to recruit MUR business. Patients are waiting for their prescriptions – if they aren’t walking around and browsing, then they could be having a consultation.
• If you have a prescription delivery service, send out an order form with the prescription and maybe, just maybe, you will generate some new business from people who have never walked into your pharmacy. Sell them your own brand – it will encourage them to buy from you again.

_{In order to support member pharmacies, Numark offers advice and resources to help them to fulfil their category management and merchandising requirements, including planograms, pharmacy core range, range rationalisation tools, retail excellence modules, and professional monthly point of sale material: (window posters, shelf barkers for products and services, monthly offer and ‘only £1’ shelf edge strips, headers boards and healthcare promotional units).}

_{For Numark members who require guidance on their retail environment, a one-to-one consultation can be requested with a pharmacy development manager. Contact our Customer Services team on 0800 783 5709 to arrange a one-to-one business review.}