Pharmacy: sales in specialised retail

Pharmacies today: sales trends and analysis

The experience we have when entering a pharmacy today is completely different from that of a few years ago.

These specialised shops now follow trade marketing principles to enhance the customer experience:

• digital signage both outside and inside the store,
• careful design of the shop window layout and product shelf placement,
• self-service areas or departments alongside the traditional counter, where friendly staff are ready to help us with our aches, concerns and doubts.

Pharmacy: booming sales of supplements and non-medicinal products

Reading the latest Mediobanca report, we find data that support these perceptions.

Italian pharmacies show a higher level of coverage than the EU average, with one outlet every 2,977 inhabitants, compared with a European average of one pharmacy every 3,245 inhabitants.

Despite the exponential growth of competing channels such as GDO corners, which since 2010 have grown by +68%, pharmacies report +11.8% and maintain a share of over 90% of the market for non-prescription products.

Today, in fact, pharmacies offer a wide range of specific products beyond medicines:

• from supplements to nutraceuticals,
• from personal care and hygiene to beauty products,
• from anti-ageing to cosmetics,
• from children’s health and entertainment to orthopaedic devices,
• from veterinary medicines to homeopathic and herbal products.

This is also why many companies producing items in the categories mentioned above now sell through this specialised channel and invest with Aton in solutions for their sales networks operating in pharmacies.

Pharmacy: specialised channel sales analysis

The figures speak for themselves: Italian pharmacies recorded a turnover growth of 8.1% in 2022, with an overall value of €24 billion in 2021, 40% of which was generated by non-pharmaceutical products.

Supplements, in particular, show annual growth of +4.6% and represent the category with the highest unit price, around €16 in 2021.

Moreover, for non-prescription products, the pharmacy channel has the highest unit prices (€9.9) while still maintaining a market share of over 90% compared with other channels, such as GDO corners.

Pharmacies: tools to succeed in 2023

Pharmacies are increasingly becoming service centres, offering diagnostics, minor treatments or renting medical equipment to their customers, whom they know better and better thanks to loyalty programmes that are sometimes more advanced than those of other specialised retailers.

One thing is certain: the pharmaceutical channel will need to invest more and more in digitalisation, in staff training with a focus on customer relations, and in expanding its clientele through e-commerce, while continuously optimising costs and improving its offering.

To learn more about what Aton can do for this sector, read our second article dedicated to the pharmaceutical and nutraceutical world: Pharmaceutical distribution: sales tools.