SHELF OBSESSED

Whether starting a brand-new pharmacy from scratch or remodeling an existing store into something new and exciting, you'll be facing a long list of items that need to be accomplished. None of these will be any more important than the selection of the retail fixtures you choose to incorporate into your store's front-end section.

While it's known that the greatest income generation in an independent pharmacy comes from the sale of prescription medications, these are items customers will already have on their lists when entering your drugstore. It's the other hundreds or thousands of products you'll be displaying in your front-end merchandising area that will require your special attention if you're to be successful in producing the “add-on” sales to complement your prescription business and carry you over the top in boosting your bottom line.

Looks are important in the world of retail pharmacy. The quality of your customer service and the competitiveness of your prices won't matter if your drugstore has only minimal customer traffic or if those would-be shoppers who do come in leave empty handed or buy little and then don't return again.

Creating a pharmacy workplace that promotes an efficient pharmacy workflow benefits everyone. For example:

• Customers are happier because prescription orders come out more quickly
• Technicians are more comfortable and able to do a better job, which improves their attitudes
• Pharmacists have more time to interact with patients and to spend time providing clinical services, such as taking blood pressure readings, administering inoculations and consulting with clients regarding their health conditions, medications, dosage requirements and potential drug interactions

With 2016 fast fading in the rear-view mirror and retailers having just moved through their traditionally busiest time of the year, we're now into 2017 and looking at a new, fresh start to a year full of hope and promise. The coming year looks to be unique for retail store operations partly because store owners, amid the pressure to compete with their eCommerce rivals, are exploring new innovations to help stabilize a retail market that's recently been softening.

The pharmaceutical industry is in major transition and, for those with plans of starting a pharmacy in 2017, considerations should be made regarding certain current trends. For years, large pharmacy companies have been taking the place of the small independents, putting them out of business in many areas by offering huge inventories and cut-rate prices. Recently, however, that trend has started to reverse itself as consumers realize they actually prefer doing business with smaller, more personalized businesses that make them feel like the customer is king.

When starting a pharmacy there are, what may seem like, endless details to handle. None, however, are more fundamental to having an effective, accurate back-end prescription-filling operation than your established workflow. Workflow, defined simply, is the process of a prescription order entering the pharmacy, being logged in, traveling through the filling and verification steps and finally landing in the hands of the ordering customer.

When people come into your store, your #1 mission should be to appeal to their desire to buy. Plenty of studies have been conducted regarding the psychology of buying and, in a retail store setting, a great deal of emphasis has been placed on the visual elements of the selling environment, including:

• Prominent colors
• Lighting
• Signage
• Flooring material
• Retail shelving

Every pharmacy has some type of established workflow—some more efficient than others and some adopted by default as "just the way we do things." A typical pharmacy workflow system will have four or five steps. The basic steps are usually:

• Input
• Fill
• Verification
• Check out

For every pharmacy out there—whether old or new, large or small, independent, franchise or chain-store operation—pharmacy shelving plays an integral role in both the back-end prescription filling and stock storage areas as well as the front-end retail merchandising space. The types of shelving you choose to use to outfit your store will depend on the style of store you're looking to create and where in the store each piece will be located.

While sales of prescription medications are likely the mainstay of your drugstore business, the sale of over-the-counter (OTC) medicines is just as important, and the way these items are displayed and merchandised can have a real impact on how well they sell. Much of this comes down to your particular pharmacy shelving design and placement. Today's options for pharmacy shelving are vast, with choices ranging from the least expensive basic units to the most expensive custom-made shelving built to order and designed to exactly fit your specific needs.