By John Brandl for our 99 Ways to Make a Positive Difference in Your Pharmacy blog series
Knowing which categories are the most productive in your store can make a powerful impact on customer satisfaction and profit potential. Do you know which categories are succeeding in your pharmacy?
To find out which categories are the most productive for you, work closely with your front-end manager to review orders and determine which items are being most frequently replenished. You can also reach out to your wholesaler to request your warehouse withdrawals or your scanning report to help you clarify what items your store is ordering often and from what categories, or utilize your POS data to show what categories are showing strong sales. It’s a good idea to compare year-over-year data for high-performing categories to identify trends and establish the potential for continued growth. Year-over-year data, especially when compared over a multi-year period, will confirm which categories are performing well long-term.
Your pharmacy staff are also great resources to help you identify the top categories in your pharmacy. Talk with them about the departments they observe the most activity in, and learn from them what products are most often inquired about.
Once you know what categories are thriving, take some time to focus on furthering their success. Review your planograms to ensure the category is well-stocked, and examine your new item list to make sure you have ordered the newest profit-driving products for the category. Review where your thriving categories are placed, and if necessary, reset your store so high-performing categories are scattered, not clustered. Spacing out productive categories around your store, with slower-performing categories in between, will encourage shoppers to navigate more areas of the front-end and increase their basket rings at check-out.
Your most productive categories are vital to your front-end success. Know them well and invest time and resources to support their success.
John analyzes client-specific data and develops individualized profitable solutions for manufacturers, healthcare distributors, and retailers.