Food for thought

While I was having a quick lunch yesterday at work, I skimmed across SWAPS August newsletter which is aptly titled "What's in a name?". If you work in a drug store, you are probably trying to push the sale of so called "home brand" or chemist own products through the roof and hopefully making lots of profit in return. If you are a consumer going to a chemist to buy a product, chances are you will probably be talked into buying one of those "home brand" alternative as well.

This is all well and good but one problem. The problem is when a customer comes in and asks for a branded line because they have used it successfully before, or they have seen it advertised on TV, and then they are "talked into" a different product, sometimes you can win and sometimes you can lose. You can win because you are probably making a much bigger margin on the sale, you can lose because the customer may not be satisfied with the results and guess what, they may not come back and tell you that. In fact, they may just not return at all.

Home brands and brand substitution when it comes to healthcare is a totally different ball game all together. Unlike supermarket where you have the option of choosing a home brand cookies and if they are no good, you just bin them. Healthcare is a very sensitive issue and consumers are aware of that and are taking it much more seriously than, let say, choosing a box of cookies.

Provide a "value" service, because at the end of the day, that's what matters to customers, not the cheapest, but the best perceived value. After all, those companies who own those big brand products are the ones who are spending big money advertising and driving consumers to your pharmacy. Don't try and beat the supermarkets at their own game!