By Tom Boyer, director of national accounts, for the Resolutions for Independent Pharmacies blog series

As a distributor, you provide your independent pharmacy stores a number of tools and aids to help them improve their business. When it comes to merchandising solutions that will offer the most return on your effort, look to endcaps.

Endcaps are the second-most shopped area of stores and a perfect place for impulse items. They are prime selling real estate, especially when they are in high-traffic areas. Highly visible shelves, paired with a product assortment that appeals to shoppers, equals high profitability potential. If you aren’t already, I recommend that you offer endcap solutions to your pharmacies. With the proper product assortment and promotion, expect a positive return on the investment for both the pharmacies and you.

Creating themed endcaps and rotating them on a regular basis helps build on the image your stores have established by following category management best practices in their front-end. As with the front-end departments, the endcaps should improve the shopper experience by making in-demand products easy to find.

We recommend rotating endcaps every 30-45 days. Keeping up with this schedule becomes easier when you have planned ahead and are prepared to provide a new product set and planogram to your stores on a similar timetable. And don’t forget signs to promote the chosen theme for the endcap display.

A healthcare focus is a logical fit for any endcaps near the pharmacy counter. Provide and encourage your pharmacists to assemble a “pharmacist recommends” endcap. You can provide pharmacies accompanying signage and guide the pharmacist to select those products that they feel are most effective and of greatest benefit to their particular set of patients. Suggest they start with OTCs they recommend to Rx patients that address common side effects of popular prescription drugs, such as dry mouth, constipation, and sun sensitivity. If this is done on an endcap near the pharmacy counter, it becomes an extension of the pharmacy and makes it especially easy for the pharmacist to show the customer to the items and speak to the symptom relief they may provide.

With a managed, consistent, and disciplined approach, you can help your stores increase profits by offering endcap solutions.