How to unleash pharmacy's potential in the supermarket

Key Points

Supermarket retailers should link their pharmacies to the center store and offer consumers products with "better for you" attributes as well as items that provide "recovery and repair" and "renewal and rejuvenation." This is the contention of Thom Blischok, president of global retail/strategic consulting for Information Resources Inc.

Blischok provided the following statistics:

Pointing out that people who have high blood pressure purchase 41% more gastrointestinal products than other consumers, Blischok recommended that retailers place heart- related products next to gastrointestinal items. He contended, "If you are not going to do senior targeting specifically around health and wellness, renewal and rejuvenation, you will lose.

In the next five years, pharmacy will drive more promotions than grocery because there is a growing, explosive cataclysmic shift toward health and wellness."

Blischok recommended that supermarkets implement these strategies:

Blischok concluded, "Consumers want convenience. This is the way consumers view why shopping in a pharmacy with rest of store is critical to them. It is absolutely critical as you are thinking about the shift in pharmacy that you become a trusted advisor. If you are going to win in the grocery, take the badge that says Pharmacist and underneath it put 'Your trusted advisor,' 'Your store,' 'Your way,' and link the pharmacy and the grocery together to drive change."