Your pharmacy is not just "your" place of business but your customers', as well. Making small changes to your pharmacy design will make it more inviting and accessible to customers so that you'll boost profits with relatively little effort or expense:
Update your interior and make it more inviting for customers
- Update walls and flooring
Opt for soft and/or bright, pleasing colors for the interior of your store, updating both wall coloring and floor covering. Ditch the bland beige or white walls and floors and opt instead for inviting shades of carpeting, tile, and wall paint. Make your space inviting and welcoming, so that customers will enjoy shopping there.
- Use modern pharmacy fixtures
Pharmacy fixtures like retail or gondola shelving may be perfectly serviceable in standard bland, institutional metal beige or off-white shelving, but one of the best ways to upgrade your pharmacy design and freshen your look is to choose those that are aesthetically pleasing. Today, pharmacy fixtures are available in a variety of colors, materials, and sizes to fit your decor.
- Take advantage of "lighting design"
The interior of your pharmacy should certainly be well lit so customers have no trouble seeing, but dispense with harsh traditional fluorescent lights and choose soft, full spectrum fluorescent lights that will provide clear, pleasing light without glare.
You can also vary the light levels throughout your store for pleasing ambiance. In addition to full-spectrum overhead lighting, illuminate high volume displays and seating areas as well as your pharmacy counter with softer focal lighting. Soft focal lighting helps customers find what they need and attractively showcases displays.
- Use modern, updated signage that fits your logo and "brand"
Upgrade and freshen your signage to fit your logo and brand when you upgrade your pharmacy interior. You'll ensure that your signage complements your other changes for a fresh, pleasing, professional look.
Upgrade your pharmacy design layout, too
- The layout should "flow" with foot traffic
Your layout and individual displays should accommodate usual customers' traffic patterns to facilitate sales.
- Product housing and displays should encourage and facilitate buying with easy accessibility and eye-catching displays.
- Place high-volume and seasonal displays strategically throughout your store
High-volume seasonal and sale items should be situated for easy grab near the entrance to your pharmacy in attractive, highly visible displays and placed strategically throughout the store based on traffic patterns so that customers naturally walk buy and see them. If customers have to search for what they're looking for (or even have to ask for help), they may give up quickly -- and that results in lost sales and lower profit for you.
- Provide complimentary seating throughout your store
It may make sense to put seating back near your pharmacy counter, for example, so that people can sit and wait for their prescriptions, but you can also place seating strategically throughout your store. Place chairs or other seating near every department and in several general locations throughout the store. This also shows that you take customers' needs into consideration, since it gives customers with mobility or other problems a place to rest while they shop. It also makes it easy for customers to stay and shop longer in your store, potentially boosting profits.
- Never place anything for sale higher than eye level
Products for sale in displays, on retail shelving and departments, or in checkout lane displays should never be placed higher than eye level. Customers see products at a glance and find what they need without help.
The easier you make it for people to shop at your store and to find what they need, the greater your profits can be.
