Success Tips For Community (Retail) Pharmacy Practice

Opening a community pharmacy after getting licence is the dream of most pharmacist in Nigeria. They all believe that is where the money is. That is true if we compare it with hospital pharmacy. However, that cannot be compared with owning an industrial pharmacy. But the pay can be more than pharmacist also working in the industry. So you see now why most pharmacist want to key into community pharmacy.
The problem is usually the finance. This is the main reason fresh registered pharmacist find it hard to open one immediately after registration and licence. Some end up working for other community pharmacy outlet for years before starting off on their own. This is not bad as one gets to gather more wealth of experience and expertise in managing a community pharmacy unlike others that go doing pharmacy representative work and eventually wants to open a community pharmacy.
To succeed in community pharmacy, experience matters. But that does not mean that those without experience cannot break in. Truth be told, majority of community pharmacy today are not hitting their target. While the remaining few others either hit more than their target or fold up when they could not keep up with strict competition. To avoid these pitfalls, a pharmacist who wants to succeed must think out of the box, plan and execute the plan. Here are some tips for starters to break in.

Tips For Community Pharmacy

Location

Getting a suitable location today is one of the most difficult decisions to make. One have to consider several factors such as environment, cost of startup, good roads, light and others. The cost of living varies from one location to another. Another problem encounter with location is competition. So many towns and cities are already saturated with community pharmacy. Trying to beat the required distance from all angles from the other community pharmacy and being outstanding among the others can pose a very big challenge. In this case, it is good you make a strong plan to break in. Your location will strongly determine your aims, goals, objectives, vision and philosophy.
Read Also: Guidelines On Opening Or Starting A Community Pharmacy

Name

Let's be realistic. Majority of community pharmacy name it after themselves or a relation or a combination of different names. This is a wrong approach. You are not out there to sell your name or that of your daughter or wife. You want people to know that this is a pharmacy where so and so services are rendered. In that case, your business name must reflect what you do. It is easy to know that drugxpert is related to drug services than hearing Gaius. Without adding drugxpert pharmaceutical services, you should already have an idea what the business stand to achieve. But if you don't hear Gaius pharmaceutical services, you will never know what the business is all about. Majority of clients will hear about the community pharmacy from others. Humans are general trying to reduce the number of words that say, hence they will shorten it to something like 'help me get this drug from drugxpert.' With this, it will be easy to know what they are talking about. But just imagine Gaius in that sentence, a novice in the area may be lost in thought.

Community pharmacy

Clear Cut Plan

You got your location, you need a plan. The plan must be flexible, easy to adjust, short, concise and easy to execute. It is from here you set up, design and develop your aims, objective, goals, vision and philosophy. Remember, these can be adjusted as you start up the business so make it as flexible as possible because this is a startup. The plan should include the number of drugs to start with, staffs strength, the qualifications of each staff, where you hope to be in the next few years and write out the plan how you hope to get it. Make sure you expose each staff to these plans as they will try to hit it high with you. Open up communication line and adjust relwvant entry from staffs. You may be surprised what they have in stock for you. A point to note is that you are here for the money but no aims and objectives of any business will say money but the button line is money. When the aim and objective of a community pharmacy is to attain up to 100 client a day from 20 within a space of one year, that will also translate into money. Any community pharmacy that push for the money rather than clients is heading for a catastrophe.

Employment

No community pharmacy can survive with just the owner if clients start coming. Although to be prudent, one can start alone and then move on to employ more hands as time goes on. It is better to always have a professional hand at all time the pharmacy is open. So it is advisable to employ another registered pharmacy to cover for time you may not be there because it is almost impossible to go to the market and still keep the place open. With two hands on board, the owner can plan for other things when not in duty. However to save cost, most community pharmacy make use of locum or intern pharmacist. Some locum pharmacist are interns or National Youth Service Corporation (N.Y.S.C) members. They receive less and are usually dedicated to their jobs as locum pharmacist. But, this will require the presence of the chief pharmacist to put them through for some weeks or months before giving them full hands. It is better to go for intern pharmacist because the preceptor knows they will be on ground for one year unlike the locum that can leave anytime when a better pay offer comes knocking.
The employment of sales clerk sometimes depends on several factors. Some community pharmacy wants a sales clerk with experience in accounting while others prefer experience in clinical settings. Whatever the case, it must reflect the goals and objectives of the business.
One more thing, it is a profitable thing to think of your staffs salary as part of your investment and not expenses. Invest in them. Train them from time to time. Build them up for better productivity.

Relationship

The community pharmacy usually comprise of few senior and junior staffs. When their is unity of purpose between the staffs, it reflects significantly in work output. When there is dispute on the floor, even clients knows and many will not be happy coming back to such a hostile environment. So the chief pharmacist must always be observant and never take sides. Asking what is the problem may not yield result as they may deny the presence of beef. It is now left for the pharmacist to rotate staffs not comfortable among themselves to work far away until the problem dies a natural death as it happens in most cases. Force compliance may backfire.

Pharmaceutical Care

All is set. All staffs are on ground and happy. This environment creates a simple atmosphere for the practice of pharmaceutical care. A good community pharmacy with pharmaceutical care wil always outsmart others around including patent stores.
With the right staffs at the right place and time, clients will always feel that are in a safe hand. Pharmaceutical care is not just talking but being emphatic. It even means calling them at home or visitation as it requires sometimes. Once they are satisfied with your service, words will go out that you community pharmacy is one of a kind.
Note: a satisfied customer with tell two persons about you but an unsatisfied customer will tell ten persons about it.

Schedule

If you plan to open the shop by 10AM, let it be 10AM. No African time should be practice in a community pharmacy business. This affect all business but more evident in community pharmacy. Everybody wants to have value for their money. Nobody wants to take a taxi to your shop only to discover it is still under lock and key. They may not come again or skeptical next time. If it happens more than once, you may have lost that client for life.
Your periodic sanitation and marketing schedule must be strictly adhere to. No lapses should be accepted. But in all, be flexible. Say a staff is some few minutes behind schedule is not enough reason to rain fire and Sulphur.

Price

Your competitors are selling at a particular price is only to guide you in placing your own price. Never listen to what customers are saying. But be flexible especially when it comes to premium products. However, never fight with big recognise community pharmacy in your area when price is concern. They may have a lower price, but you should have better service because you have more time to attend to clients.

Promotion

Many community pharmacy do employ the old tradition of promoting their business to their community. But these methods are already getting obsolete as every other community pharmacy is doing it. Actually, community pharmacy are not expected to advertise their business, but there are traditional methods allowed. They have been over flogged that they are no longer yielding fruits the way it use to. Even though some of these methods are old, it is still better as using multiple channel is good as old persons are not really expose to the modern methods of communication.

Traditional Promotional Methods

Some common traditional method are;

• Leafletting: cheap and cost effective, you can give a leaflet to customers who buy drugs. The leaflet should contain a brief description on what you do there. Don't forget to include your contact details especially address.
• Newsletter: you must have come across magazines with sponsored adverts by different community pharmacy. For example, some Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (P.S.N) journals are filled up with adverts by different community pharmacy. However, this is not a very potent method as majority of the consumers are not target audience. They may be fellow Pharmacists who live some distance away. The use of local journals pays off.
• Bag stuffing: I doubt if there is any community pharmacy today that does not have this. Customise bags use to package drugs for clients.
• Outreach and seminar: this is one legal way to get message out to the public. Publicise your seminar to the world using every available means. The purpose of these programme is to get the name of your community pharmacy to the locals. Use paid advert to promote the seminar. At the end, the name of the community pharmacy must be heard before and during the programme.

Technological Approach

Non tradition (Technology) approach to getting clients include:

• Software: there are tonnes of softwares both offline and online for desktop and mobile phones. These softwares are designed to optimize sales and make accounting easy. Some, however are complex and complicated because most of the designers are not pharmacist. With these softwares, you can send clients customised messages, process refolrand get reminders on expired product in stock. The choice between a desktop and mobile phone software depends on the owner. Because of its portability, mobile software is gradually gaining ground.

• Website/Blog: this is the best way to get your name online. The world is getting technologically inclined and so is Nigeria. According to National Communication Commission (N.C.C), about 100million Nigerians surf the web on a monthly basis. If you divide it by the number of people in your locality, you can only estimate the number of persons you will hit. To make the best use of the website, always update it regularly. Show the world services you render and and can render. Give health tips to visitors. Share recent trends in medicines. The more active the website is, the more your clients will trust your judgement and pay you a visit.

Read Also: How To Set Up A Patent Medicine Store In Nigeria

The website should contain your business address, contact details, and links to all other online presence you have including your social media. Some also include the products they have in the website making it easy for clients to know when drugs are available.

• Social media: to creat social media page and handle is cheap and easy. But the result is enormous. But it hurts me to see that very few community pharmacy even have one. The few that have are not active. Imagine contacting a community pharmacy online for information on drugs and it takes two days to get a feedback or reply. Nothing could be so annoying than that. Even some don't respond at all to queries. It is that bad.

Social media can boost your business if use properly. It involves regularly updating it with relevant information relating to drugs and your company. Pay periodic incentives to visitors and those who share your post from the page. Make the page go viral. And remember, the button line is to get the word out services you render and where you can be found (contact address). If you have many followers, your business will be more famous than your competitors.
There are several social media channels. Look out for the one that is having more users in your locality and focus on that. And always consider your target audience. If you target elders and they are very conversant with 2go than any other social media, then please go for 2go. It is also good to have many social media channels but maintaining the most vital is good. May be hectic and tedious to maintain but is worth it.
To have a successful website that will reflect in your business, you need a Search Engine optimization (S.E.O) expert, social media manager and a regular writer. They help build the website from the scratch, promote it and all your social media pages. To them, it is an easy job but to you, it is a difficult task. For those who wish to build a website, or looking for a social media manager of SEO expert or even a writer, contact me for all that on;
Phone number: 08081062183
e-mail: phcgaius@gmail.com
With details of what you want. Charges vary.

• Google Map: one easy way to navigate places like Lagos and Abuja is the use of Google map. Honestly, living in Lagos is traumatic. The problem is compounded when you ask for directions from people who are always scared everybody is a criminal. They will not talk to you because they are always scared people asking for directions use that means to defraud people. So asking for directions from a typical lagosian is like a waste of time. That is when Google map came to the rescue. With it, you can locate most establish business everywhere. So, you have to register your community pharmacy with Google map. It is easy. You don't need to hire anybody for this. Just visit Google map and map the shop. You can also ask all your staffs to do same. The more the reviews from people in that location, the more Google map the shop more visible. If only one person have written review, Google may still be skeptical about it. But when you get up to twenty reviews, Google believe it more. The review is better accepted if you are in the shop as at the time of registration.
• Smartphone app: honestly, I never knew about this until of recent. Through pocketRx, you can create an app for smartphones. This app is a branded smartphone and refill app through which patients can order for drugs before coming over. For community pharmacy that offer home delivery, this will optimise supply. The app can be customized to taste with other relevant details.
• Quick Response (Q.R): do you know you can also use the power of QR scan code to provide information to client? Yes, it is very easy and convenient. Banks are using it, so you too can. The QR code for a unique link to your website can be displayed everywhere you can where clients can scan it and are redirected to the link. It is better the link is to your latest programme or available drugs with detail information.

Many persons have contacted me before now on a community pharmacy foolproof plan otherwise known as community pharmacy business plan. For those of you who are interested, I can draft out one for you subject to further editing by you because of many circumstances as stated earlier. Contact me on:
Phone number: 08081062183
e-mail: phcgaius@gmail.com
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