Tis the season for shopping, even at the pharmacy. The holiday shopping season is a prime opportunity to boost sales and revenue in your front end. And, you can do that with a good promotion.
You don’t need a ton of stock or a huge front end to do a promotion. (Something as small as a bottle of vitamins makes a great stocking stuffer!) The point is to boost revenue by reminding holiday shoppers that they can purchase gifts at your pharmacy, something they tend to forget when rushing in and out to grab their refills.
Drive more foot traffic to your store this season when you try one—or all five—of these holiday promotions.
1. Offer free hot beverages
Get more customers to shop your front end for holiday gifts by providing free coffee, tea and hot chocolate to customers. Sipping on a hot beverage encourages customers to stay a while and it can bring more foot traffic to your store. Plus, it promotes good feelings for your pharmacy, ones that can stick around all year.
2. Partner with a local business
Do any small businesses in your community make unique gifts, like soap, candles or candy? Work with a local business in your area to do a promotion at your pharmacy featuring its products. You could do a giveaway or stock the products just for the holidays to see how they sell. If you get a good margin, consider keeping them around the rest of the year. It shows goodwill to work with other small businesses in your community and it may be the beginning of a mutually profitable relationship.
3. Promote with social media
Remind customers that your pharmacy is a great place to shop for gifts using your Facebook and Twitter accounts. It’s free advertising! Use social media to show off pictures of the unique gift items in your pharmacy or to hold flash sales. A Facebook status as simple as, “Are you out and about today? Stop by the pharmacy to pick up your prescriptions and do some holiday shopping!” will work too.
4. Use shelf talkers
Place signs and shelf talkers around your store that point out items that would make good stocking stuffers. Or, use them to show off items that you’re having a sale on, such as buy one get one 50% off. These eye-catching signs will remind your patients that they have holiday shopping to do and it will encourage them to browse your front end.
5. Send holiday cards
Mail holiday cards to your patients with a coupon that’s good for your front end before December 25. A personalized message from you or your staff will remind patients that their hometown pharmacy cares about them and the coupon will encourage more sales. To break up the work of handwriting cards, have each staff member write a certain number of cards. If you can’t send a card to all of your customers, run a report on your pharmacy computer system that identifies your top 25 customers.
