INTRODUCTION TO RETAIL

PHARMACY
 1.0 Introduction
• Learning Outcome :
– Explain why the need for retail skills
– Discuss how to build the kind of customer
relationships a pharmacy needs to succeed.
• Active standards
• Passive standards
 1.0 Introduction
• Learning Outcome :
– Explain the key techniques to communicate with
customers
• The WWHAM approach
• OTC categories
• Product recommendations
• Handling customers’s problem
 1.0 Introduction
• Learning Outcome :
– Explain the key techniques to closing a sale
• Suggestive selling
• Link selling
• Merchandising and display
 DEFINATION OF PHARMACY
• The word pharmacy is drived from the greek
word pharmakon, meaning medicine or drug.
• Pharmacy was considered as an art of
compounding and dispensing of medicines at
the counter.
• with the advancement of science and growing
needs of people for quality products, a lot of
progress has been made in the profession of
pharmacy.
 DEFINATION OF PHARMACY
• The drugs handled by present day pharmacist
differ greatly from those used by his
predecessors fifty years back .
• Now the drugs are manufactured in bulk by
the pharmaceutical industry and are
distributed or sold among the consumers by
the pharmacist.
 DEFINATION OF PHARMACY
Definition :
• Pharmacy is now defined as that profession, which is
concerned with the art and science of preparing from
natural and synthetic sources, suitable and convenient
materials for distribution and use in the treatment and
prevention , of disease.
• It provides a knowledge of the identification, selection,
synthesis, pharmacological action , formulation,
preservation, analysis and standardization of drugs and
medicines. It also includes their proper and safe
distribution and use of drugs.
 DISPENSING
• Dispensing means to prepare and supply of medicine to an
individual patient, in accordance with the prescription of
practitioner.

• For proper dispensing of medicines, it is essential that present day

pharmacist should have a sound knowledge of various branches of
pharmacy, such as pharmaceutics, pharmaceutical chemistry,
pharmacology, pharmacognosy, microbiology, pharmaceutical
technology and forensic pharmacy.
 SCOPE OF PHARMACY
• There is wide scope of pharmacy profession .
• A pharmacist is a specialist in medication .
• Custodian of medical information .
• Companion of the physician.
• Counsellor to the patient and guardian of the
public health, since he can perform a number of
roles, so he can odopt any one of the following
fields of pharmacy to earn his livelihood.
 SCOPE OF PHARMACY
1. Retail Pharmacy Or Community Pharmacy.
2. Wholesale Pharmacy.
3. Industrial Pharmacy
4. Pharmacy education.
5.Hospital pharmacist.
6. Drug control administration
7. Pharmaceutical journalism
8. Nuclear pharmacy (radio pharmacy)
9.Oncology pharmacy
10. Organisational management (MQA etc)
 FUNCTION OF PHARMACISTS IN THE RETAIL
PHARMACY

• Distribution of prescribed drug products

• computerized connection between pharmacies
across the nation involving all drugs that are
legally available
• compounding prescriptions

• consulting with and educating patients.

 PRESCRIPTION
• Prescription is a written order from a
registered medical practitioner , or other
properly licensed practitioners , such as
dentist, etc. to pharmacist to compound and
dispense a specific medication for the patient.
• The prescription are generally written in
english language. But Latin words or
abbreviation are frequently used in order to
save time.
DUTIES OF THE PHARMACY TECHNICIAN IN THE
COMMUNITY PHARMACY
The pharmacy technician now has more responsibilities than ever before . These duties include :
 Processing the prescription
 Record keeping
 Pricing
 Answering telephone calls
 Computer applications in the control of drug use
 Accountability
 Maintaining privacy
 Communication skill
 Teamwork
 Purchasing
 Inventory control
 Billing
 Repacking products
 Preventing drug errors
 Safe methods of working.
 THE NEED FOR RETAIL SKILLS

• In recent years, community pharmacy has

undergone significant change . It has been at the
forefront of a shift in health care policy.
• This shift has been accompanied by an increasing
number of medicines, formerly available only on
prescription, becoming available over the counter.
 THE NEED FOR RETAIL SKILLS

• All this, combined with changes in the supervisory role of

pharmacists, has resulted in a changing and widened role
for the pharmacy assistant.

• Every customer in the pharmacy is an important person:

counter assistant must demonstrate that they care about
each one. And want to meet and exceed their
expectations.
 THE NEED FOR RETAIL SKILLS
• During career as a pharmacy assistant, you will work
with pharmacists, customers, prescription medicines,
OTC and beauty products.
• People are no longer visiting a pharmacy to simply
have a prescription dispensed. They are buying a
services, which includes good advice and effective
products.
 THE NEED FOR RETAIL SKILLS

• If you provide quality assistance and service.

Then customers will return to your pharmacy

again and again.

 THE NEED FOR RETAIL SKILLS
• Shop design is important to the profitability of every
pharmacy.
• Displays of products on shelves in little travelled side
are much less likely to generate sales than items
displayed on the main side.
• However, this does not mean that every item displayed
on a main side will automatically sell.
 THE NEED FOR RETAIL SKILLS

• Therefore, it is important to carefully choose what

types of products you display in the main side.

• You can actively help make a sale in your

pharmacy without saying a word .

 BUILDING CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS

• Customers are the lifeblood of a success

community pharmacy. How you treat them sets
the tone for all of their future dealings with you .
• Without customers, your pharmacy can not
make sales, and without sales you will not have a
position, and the pharmacy no future.
 BUILDING CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS

Q. How would you initiate an interaction with

the customer ?
 Smile and make eye contact.
 Say ‘hello’
 Walk around behind the pharmacy counter so
that your back is not turned to the customer,
then stay with in sight so you are available to
answer questions.
 BUILDING CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS

• Providing good service in a pharmacy can be

achieved through two different approaches .
• One set of active standards has to do with
your behavior and other passive standards-
relates to the image presented through your
pharmacy’s appearance.
 ACTIVE STANDARDS
• We can subdivide the list of active standards
into even more specific categories called
1. Personality traits
2. Professional presentation
 ACTIVE STANDARDS
Personality traits Professional presentation

 Attentive  Confidential

 Attitude  Professional appearance

 Strong social skills  Product knowledge

 Trustworthiness  Strong communication

 Personality Traits
Attentive
• When customers come to the pharmacy we must great them and
ask what they want and we must give good service to them.
• Able to answer and quickly suggest the best medication
• Give advice to the customers about their diet or maybe their
lifestyle.
Attitude
• To communicate with customers we have to respect our customer
to make them comfortable with us
• Show that we have knowledge about the product in pharmacy
 
Strong social skills
• If we have strong social skills, customers can feel more
confident and trusted with our product.
• Friendly with them to make them comfortable communicate
with us.
• We also must know to handle health equipment such as
blood glucose machine and others
Trustworthiness
• Must have responsibility to care about customer safety.
• We also must have good relationship with other staff and
honest each other.
 Professional Presentation
Confidential
• It is an ethical principle associated with several professions .For
example, if VIP individual comes to the pharmacy and buy
certain medication which relate to his or her diseases and can
causes make his or her reputation down, we must keep all
documents private and confidential.
Professional Appearance
• Wearing suitable appearance and make sure it is clean and tidy
because we are carry the image of our pharmacy.
Product Knowledge
• We must know benefit and side effect of product
• Suggest the best product to the customer and sometimes have
to differentiate the medication with others.
• Also can share our knowledge with the customers
Strong Communication
• Communication skills simply do not refer to the way in which
we communicate with another person
• The way we respond to the person we are speaking, body
gestures including the facial tones, pitch and tone of our voice
and a lot of other things.
• Without effective communication skills, a person may find it
impossible to deal with customer.
 
 ACTIVE STANDARDS
• Customers will make purchases regardless of
how well you are served. But their loyalty to
your pharmacy and the frequency of their
visits is damaged by even one unsatisfactory
experience.
• Customers who are left unimpressed by their
experience in your pharmacy are less likely to
return, and when they do, they tend to
purchase fewer items only.
Passive Standards

Passive Standards

 Cleanliness of pharmacy

 Availability of products, no out – of - stocks

 Store product and display

 PASSIVE STANDARDS
 First and foremost, it is essential that the
pharmacy is kept clean .
 Dusty shelves, a dirty floor and disorganised
array of products all convey the impression of
a shop that is not well cared for.
 Passive Standards

• Display shelves that lack an adequate stock of

products indicate a pharmacy that is not ready to

serve its customers needs.

• A messy shop undermines all of your efforts to be

friendly and professional.

 Communicating with customers
Q. How can you sell to the people who shop at
your pharmacy ?
 The answer lies in a less obvious element of
selling: earning trust
 This aspect of selling begins with the concept
of selling yourself, or behaving and speaking in
a way as to reassure customers they have
placed their trust in the right person.
 Communicating with customers
 Customers will not be attracted to even the
most knowledgeable pharmacy assistant if you
demonstrates an unhelpful or disinterested
attitude.
 You must represent yourself and your
pharmacy as knowledgeable, trustworthy
healthcare providers to provide the products
and advice to your customers need.
 Communicating with customers
The key to effective communication .
1. Treat customers as you would like to be treated .
2. Always volunteer to go the ‘extra mile’
3. Offer help – don’t wait to be asked
4. Ask targeted questions
5. listen actively
6. Be patient
7. Stop anything else that you may be doing when
communicating with customers.
8. Know your limits and refer any issues where you are uncertain
to the pharmacist.
 THE WWHAM APPROACH
The WWHAM is a set list of questions used to give accurate advice and to aid in

dispensing correctly, it means;

 Who is the patient?

 What is the problem?

 How long has it been a problem?

 Action that has been taken to date?

 What other Medicines are taken?

 OTC CATEGORIES
 Baby care
 Baby medicines
 Cough/cold/allergy
 Digestion
 Family planning
 Feminine care
 Foot care
 Pain relief
 Personal care
 Skin care
 Travel and first aid
 Vitamins and supplements
 OTC CATEGORIES
 It is important to learn what are the most
popular, best selling and most effective
products in each category.
 Once you familiar with the categories and
subcategories in your pharmacy, you can sell it
very easily.
 PRODUCT RECOMMENDATIONS
 Many times customers enter the pharmacy
already knowing what product they intend to
buy.
 often their choice is based on prior
knowledge or use of the product.
 but when it is a first-time purchase, what
motivates the customer to buy one product
over another?
 PRODUCT RECOMMENDATIONS

 Pharmacy recommendation is very important

to a customer’s choice of product, especially
when buying for the first time .
 You will often find yourself being asked about
the different products in your pharmacy.
 PRODUCT RECOMMENDATIONS
 You will be glade at those times that you can
answer for product questions.
 You will be even more glad to be able to
recommend products based upon your own
knowledge.
HANDLING CUSTOMER’S PROBLEM
 Common problems you may face include the customer
is over-charged for a sale.
 The customer who suffers an adverse reaction to a
product you recommended, and the customer who is
dissatisfied with the selection of products offered by
you.
 If the complaint involves an overcharge, quickly refund
the difference and apologize for the over-charge.
 If no over-charge has been made explain how the
price paid was correct.
HANDLING CUSTOMER’S PROBLEM
 From time to time a customer may experience difficulty
after using a product.
 Refer all such complaints immediately to the pharmacist
for consultation .
 If a customer is disappointed at not finding a desired
product in your store, first offer them an alternative
product you do stock. Otherwise prepare to refer your
customer to other nearby retailers stock.
 Customers will be grateful for your concern over their
satisfaction rather than you focusing only on making sale.
 CONVERT TO SALE
 ‘Convert to sale’ means to turn a browsing
customer into a buying customer.
 it involves everything you do to encourage
each customer in the pharmacy to make
purchase.
 most customers actually convert themselves
into buyers by simple technique.
 CONVERT TO SALE
Technique such as :

 Suggestive selling

 Link selling

 Merchandising and display

 Suggestive selling
 Suggestive selling is a sales technique in
which the salesperson mentions to a customer
another product that is related to the product
already being purchased.
 Making a suggestion to a customer in this way
often results in a larger purchase and at the
same time the customers is better served with
more of what they needs.
 LINK SELLING
 Link selling is a similar to suggestive selling. Where it
differs is that the second product is related to the
customer’s health condition or to the product they are
planning to purchase.
 Link selling is a way of offering your customers an
additional service and increasing sales of related
products from the pharmacy.
 Merchandising and display
 When products in your pharmacy are
displayed according to a few basic and tested
principles, the possibility of their catching a
customer’s eye is increased
 Merchandising and display
 When you are familiar with how your
pharmacy’s shelves are laid out and where
different categories and subcategories of
products are kept, you can quickly guide the
customer to where they will find the type of
item they needed.
 Customers generally appreciate being taken to
where the product is situated, rather than just
being told where it’s situated.
THANK Q