Retailers, too, are constantly evolving their store layouts and merchandising strategies to help shoppers complete their varied shopping missions and generally improve satisfaction.It is perhaps this last aspect that makes the pharmacy channel so interesting.

With most sales coming from prescription medicines, there appears an opportunity amid the imbalance. After all, the prescription shopper often needs to dwell in store much longer than the average customer. The challenge appears to be in complementing the planned prescription purchases with unplanned and impulse sales. This is not a challenge unique to pharmacy – with fierce competition among retailers in general, there is often a sparse living to be made on the profits of ‘need’ purchases, which are regularly the subject of price deflation and even displayed to consumers via the ‘price of typical basket’ comparison.

This is evidenced by the percentage of income we consumers now allocate to life’s essentials versus what we might be willing to spend on, say, a pair of sunglasses. In research, shoppers will state all manner of rationale for the purchase of a product. This reasoning rarely withstands much scrutiny and serves as a reminder that consumers’ actions are often driven more by wants than by needs. So apart from providing prescription and over-the-counter medicines, many pharmacies would do well to consider injecting some ‘retail therapy’ to the shop floor.

Perhaps that is easy to say but more difficult to do. As any retailer will know, there is risk inherent in changing what customers have become familiar with. From a pharmacy perspective, there are clearly some essentials, such as easy orientation of distress purchases and an ambient environment that does not undermine the serious work at the heart of the business.   

That aside, there are good examples of retailers evolving their offerings to keep pace with changing conditions. The major grocers offer a breathtaking range of services compared with the roots of their core business. It will be interesting to see how the ones who have traditionally offered those services adapt to the challenge.  In this respect, the business of forecourt retailing has some parallels with pharmacy. It is historically wedded to a revenue stream from fuel, whose pricing strategy is – if not beyond retailer control – heavily influenced by government legislation. Then came the grocers who offered a similar service but had many other revenue streams against which to set prices.  

With its Connect stores, BP seems to have taken this challenge head-on. The dilemma was always how to get the fuel shoppers (the prescription customers if you will) to the checkout and paid with as little fuss and as short a wait as possible, while at the same time drawing their attention to the range of much higher margin items on the shelves. By rationalising the range and developing new brands such as Wild Bean Café, which trade heavily on their quality, BP has gone a long way to changing the expectation of shoppers entering a Connect site.

Returning to pharmacy, there was a similar but smaller-scale example in Hertfordshire. Two independent pharmacies were within a few hundred yards of the local surgery, albeit on different sides of the road. The store nearest the surgery had a direct, parallel aisle from the door to the counter and, apart from the ubiquitous reading-glasses display, little else.

No doubt there was much besides, as there were at least two centre-floor gondolas, but the layout would have discouraged anyone from lingering to ‘shop’ the store in the absence of a pre-planned purchase. The raised podium area at the opposite end of the store was like the bridge of a ship and added to the feeling of being watched. Aware of the security challenges faced by pharmacies, and conscious of the bedraggled appearance that befits ‘the man unwell’, I remember feeling somewhere between self-conscious and unwelcome.

I should balance this unflattering description by adding that it was not an unusually bad store; it appeared substandard only by comparison with the other pharmacy.

The second pharmacy was no larger than the first, but I was constantly intrigued by the range of products on offer – products I would not know how to find elsewhere. Many would fall under the category of ‘gifts’.

Despite having no particular penchant for jewellery boxes, leather-bound nail files and pocket-knives, I found the consistently high quality of the products, their excellent presentation and the apparently ever-changing range captivating. The small but carefully merchandised shop window must have stopped as many after-hours dog-walkers as did the estate agents and jewellers on either side.

The pharmacy counter was more akin to a regular store and appeared to be doing a sterling trade. Gondola shelving lined the perimeter of the shop floor, in a dark-wood effect in keeping with the age of the listed building. By contrast, the centre floor was a combination of small, low-level island gondolas and tall glass display cabinets for the aforementioned gifts. This provided several different routes from the door to the counter, but none entirely linear.

In this store I regularly called to mind the birthdays, anniversaries and other significant occasions that I would usually overlook with stereotypical male abandon. Can there be any greater retailer ambition than to change the shopper’s psyche from “Do I need it?” to “What excuse can I use to buy it?”

Consumer occasions of a different type have long been used to develop both marketing and merchandising strategies and continue to deliver remarkable results when implemented at retail. An ‘occasion-based’ strategy requires the store to be considered as a marketing medium. Layout and merchandising are planned with shopper missions in mind, with signage to orientate shoppers and help them to locate the required category. Key selected products may have secondary sites at relevant points in the store to prompt unplanned sales. This can be rotated to maintain interest and to complement the purchase occasions relevant during different seasons.

Communications throughout the store can then be used to locate pre-planned purchases, suggest complementary, unplanned purchases and inspire impulse buys. Each of these is a different objective and care must be taken not to bombard the shopper with too much information. Similarly, the balance of text and visuals should be optimised to best effect. The best results are realised when the strategy is applied holistically at a whole-store level or at least in a defined category where there is underperformance.  

If a whole store revamp is a step too far it’s worth remembering that, even at shelf level, the basics might be well-known but they are often overlooked. In healthcare, which is a relatively complex sector with high-value stock and where confidence in self-selection is uppermost, it is still worth investing in shelf management systems. These ensure products stay located above the correct descriptions and price indications. Some even ensure that products remain ‘fully faced’ during and after busy trading periods.

Although shelf management systems have existed for many years, recent developments have overcome the failings of earlier systems and can genuinely claim to contribute towards a key objective shared by many retailers, which is to reduce the time highly qualified staff spend on menial tasks such as shelf facing, restocking and planogram changes, releasing them to spend time with customers.

Finally, some innovative additions include security devices that allow customers direct access to high-value items, but prevent the ‘sweeping’ of the professional shoplifter looking to make a bulk haul. With some supplements now retailing at close to £100, it’s easy to see why many pharmacies are actively looking at solutions to combat shrinkage.