By Kyle Lentz, category analyst, for the Resolutions for Independent Pharmacies blog series
Building store profits through adjacencies is not an easy task, especially when space is at a premium and so many categories seem to logically fit with other categories. Understanding the way your customers shop plays a key role in determining these strategic adjacencies, and will make it easier on you when making the tough decisions of which categories should be positioned adjacent to each other.
When contemplating how your shoppers can benefit from adjacencies, consider looking at your front-end as a road map with the pharmacy counter as the ultimate destination.
Four things to consider:
- What are the top five categories your customers typically shop? HRG ranks the categories based on sales for independents as Cold & Allergy, Digestive Health, Vitamins, Pain Relief, and First Aid.
- Are you making recommendations for OTC products when your customers come in to fill their prescriptions, and are your customers receptive to this type of suggestive selling? If they are, key categories need to be closer to the pharmacy for convenience.
- What percentage of your business is OTC compared to Rx? If your Rx business is 90% compared to 10% OTC, you may want to cluster your top categories near the pharmacy counter because that’s where your customers spend most of their time. If your OTC sales are greater than 10%, this means people are already shopping throughout your pharmacy and we recommend spreading the top categories out to increase foot traffic in the less shopped areas. This will help distribute customers throughout your pharmacy and bring attention to additional selling opportunities.
- Is there a main aisle that runs directly to the pharmacy? If so, position your top categories within this aisle so shoppers must pass through the best categories on their way to pick up a prescription.
Once you’ve looked at your business and have an understanding of the way your customers shop, building the proper adjacencies, and locating them in a way that will increase overall sales will benefit both you and your customers’ overall health.