Stock does not sell stock …………. Unless you are a warehouse

Pre-pandemic, when I enjoyed the liberty to roam the countryside, and use the regular filling of my statin script to conduct my own mystery shopper visits, I recall becoming regularly flummoxed by how crowded so many pharmacies felt.  Not necessarily by a surfeit of customers, but due to a lack of personal space provision.  I wonder how these pharmacies and their customers are coping with the 1.5m social distancing bit.   No room behind script -in if one or two customers arrived there before me.  Ditto script out and OTC counters.  And no hope at all if a few shopping trolleys or mobility scooters are in the mix.  No personal space around me if I should sit on a waiting chair.  And on it goes.  Claustrophobia quickly sets in.

Why?

For a warehouse … I get it.  But for a professional services-based pharmacy?  It seems that the notion that stock sells stock still reigns supreme.  The manifesto that exhorts “stack ‘em high….watch ‘em fly”.  Gondolas on top of gondolas.  Dump bins upon dump bins.  Bilateral shelf talkers that reach out into the aisle far enough to restrict a two-way aisle down to one way traffic.

If you are a professional services pharmacy, remember that less is more.  Sacrifice.  Prioritise.  Make space.  Remove gondolas that consume floor space at the service counters in the professional services area.  Remove dump bins at entrances to your dispensary.  Remove stock bins that create clutter at the dispensary service counters.  Create ambience.  Create order.  Create flow.  Critically, create workflow for efficient meds processing.  Mirror this with efficient customer traffic flow.  Leverage both to create culture and calmness to foster rich customer engagement at the service counters.  Give your customers more than what they expected in terms of a more complete solution for their conditions.  Complementary sell to deliver that complete solution and “wow” your customers.

Make great professional service outsell stock weight.