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The digital era we live, the pharmacy reinvents itself also.
If in the past times it was the place of excellence dedicated only to provide medicines and prescriptions for sick patients, in more recent times it tended to a real evolution, becoming a multipurpose environment gathering healthcare performances, lifestyle opportunities, beauty and cosmetics.
But not only that!
The staggering increase of quantity and the wide selection of products we can find on pharmaceutical displays has gone simultaneously with the increasing offers inside the pharmacy. Today’s classic example comes from the “pharmacy service”, similarly named from the Ministry of Health. Analysis, screening, personalized advices, health programs, prevention campaigns, are some of the services available.
Starting from there prerequisites, if we think in visual merchandising terms we can say that the pharmacy can be considered as any other store. The recipe is more or less the same: the user who goes to the pharmacy and purchases becomes a customer; the purchase implicates a priori defined need, or it can be influenced by persuasive marketing techniques, the impulse buying. Rather we believe that the Pharma Universe has one more winning card than generic stores, in fact anyone sooner or later, even if reluctantly, will enter in a pharmacy.
Then, we cannot know the reason to let slip the opportunity to increase the buying potential of a large and different target? Especially if we consider two important points: on one hand the charm of neuro-marketing and on the other side the majority of the purchase decisions are taken within the sales point. This is the reason why Visual Merchandising can become the most valuable and necessary partner for the Pharma World.
The first becoming future is therefore the awareness that an innovative and efficient pharmacy cannot overlook onto Visual Merchandising. Ad this is not a mere aesthetic question, but the way ti stand out or to be more captivating in compliance with competitors. And not just this!
The matter is to address the customer’s shopping experience and suggest him with a neat and structured displaying system, both physically and conceptually, that optimizes the stay and the waiting times in the pharmacy, by offering suitable self-shopping experiences which enhances at the same time the promotional initiatives, the events and the communication of the displaying environment.
The display area reshaped with suitable visual techniques has an active role in the pharmacy: it addresses and satisfies the user’s need, gives impulse to his potential demands and excites to purchase. On these basis, the second goal is to implement the visual techniques in a strategic and customized solution. There is no a unique or universal format to be applied in every pharmacy. Each sales point changes according to the place and the area, the customer base, values and identity, commercial policies, and duties offered.
Therefore it is necessary to assess each enterprise by analyze the potential and critical terms of the organization of the sales point (that is the layout) and the displaying system of the products (that is the display), for made on measure strategies.
Therefore it is important to change the universe consumption in the sales point to increase the purchases, to offer a display system enable to meet the marketing or target criteria, to address the clients in order to let them acquainted with whole the products on sale, and impulse purchases in “warm areas” (the most frequented ones) and those lesser frequented, “cold areas”.
Facing to those perspectives means above all, acting in a conscious and professional way: a Visual Merchandiser is never extemporaneous.
To confirm the link between the Visual World and the Pharma one, we can mention two examples that currently involve our consulting Company. For Unifarco Biomedical we looked after the mapping and the window equipment of almost 600 pharmacies in view of the Physical Activity Week that will be scheduled for Mat 21st.
Main goal of the fitting was to promote a healthier and conscious lifestyle, in order to make the public aware on the services offered by Unifarco Specialized Pharmacies and control their health.
Instead, for Dr. Max Group we are involved to the creation and the window dressing directed to sunscreen products. As our renderings illustrate, even the shop windows of the pharmaceutical sector follow the same techniques and modus operandi of any other activity of the retail sector.
Interviewing the marketing manager Mr.Francesco Modena, Eurosalus Italy Company which deals on supplement products, confirmed that the launch of the new campaign for Floradix (the main products of Eurosalus), he decided to focus on visual strategies, by creating several retail supports as display cardboards, floor and bench display, window cubes, shelf stoppers.
In addition, they used a wooden display for whole the line of products and a cardboard display for the herbal tea line. The 2018 summer season will see a retail top initiative with a counter display to promote the Salufrangol.
Summarizing up with supporting data the pharmaceutical market is growing. The pharmaceutical industry represents a real strategic asset of the Italian economy as we are the second EU country on drugs production (30 billion) and the first for per capita production (from Istat).
In 2017 generic drugs represented 81% for volumes and 64% in value of whole the class A drugs, the sales volume of the counter drugs increased by 2,4% and the nutraceuticals market saw an increase of 6% compared to 2016, with an Italian individual expenditure that ranks first in Europe (from IQVIA Italy). Increased the people’s inclination to take care of their health (from National on Health Observatory on Italy’s regions).
Following our attendance to Cosmofarma Exhibition, the leading event in the Pharmacy world at European level for Health Care, Beauty Care and the duties related to the Pharmacy world, held in Bologna last April, we heard the multifaceted nature of the Pharma world. We visited the numerous stands within the five pavilions of the Exhibition: pharmaceutical, para-pharmaceutical and healthcare, dermocosmetics, natural, nutrition and dieting, services for pharmacies, network and contract manufacturing organisation.
We conversed and discussed with the marketing managers of most important brands and companies and emerged that, if VM catches more and more prominence in this sector, the commercial prospective that could be caught by applying correctly the visual tools and strategies, it is still underestimated. Thence, the way is still impervious. There are many pharmacies portrayed in the tradition, fleeing from change, rather sensitive to change.
But now the market trends leave few space to imagination: the creation of value in a Pharmacy also passes through Visual merchandising. Those who decide to stay outside are destined to content themselves.
by AN shopfitting magazine no.145 © | by Paolo Zanardi, XT retail
