Top Tips for Expanding Revenue Streams in Your Pharmacy

With many community pharmacies facing pressures on revenues due to fluctuating drug prices - with many running at a loss on these medications - finding new revenue streams and maximising profits from OTC products is vital.

Diversifying revenue streams can relieve financial pressures from prices and funding issues, allowing community pharmacies to become more secure.

In this blog you’ll get some top tips to help you expand your pharmacy’s revenue streams, as well as make more from your OTC products.

Benefits of adding new services

Community pharmacies are much more than the dispensers they’ve historically been known for.

Today they play a much bigger role in community care.

And with initiatives like Pharmacy First enabling pharmacists to offer advice and treatment for common, minor ailments that would traditionally require patients to visit a GP, the potential to add even more services is huge.

The more patients pharmacists have registered and the more services they provide, the more reimbursements they’ll be able to collect.

Key services range from stop smoking services, hypertension case-finding services and vaccination services, like annual flu jabs.

These could be used as bookable services, but could also be marketed as walk-in services to make them more convenient for patients.

By introducing and testing the viability of new services, particularly monitoring the revenue generated from new services you can, over time, add additional services or discontinue those that prove less popular or profitable with patients.

Ultimately, the potential is there and with well trained staff who are able to talk to and advise patients on these offerings, pharmacies have huge potential to generate revenue outside of prescription services.

Optimising existing offers

While offering new services can be an effective way to generate additional revenue, don’t discount the additional revenue that can be generated from existing offers.

The layout of a pharmacy can encourage more purchases, particularly by encouraging more impulse purchases of smaller items, or using displays to promote products as “bundles”.

When it comes to layout, consider breaking the area into “departments” with proper signage so patients can easily identify where products are, for example “cold and flu”, “vitamins” etc.

Popular products should be placed at the front of the store as close to eye level as possible to make them easily identifiable.

Displays can be created to put complementary products next to each other to encourage additional purchases.

Smaller items can be placed close to the reception or paypoint in order to encourage last minute impulse purchases.

Counter displays can also be used for encouraging impulse purchases, or to promote additional services.

Boosting revenue with technology

Digital marketing can be a useful tool for promoting additional products or services and taking advantage of online search trends.

Using SEO and content marketing to create informational content about seasonal services can help you appear in searches like “where to get my flu jab” during the winter or other year round services like “blood pressure monitoring”.

Email marketing can be effective for targeting specific services at segments of your existing customers.

For in store marketing, consider using technology like digital displays to promote services or offers.

These digital displays are an ideal platform for wall mounted and window displays, enabling pharmacists to maximise their available retail space and create eye-catching ads to encourage uptake of other services, or to promote offers.

Additional revenue opportunities also exist by allowing other local health providers or organisations to advertise their own services on your displays for a fee.

Better technology can also improve revenue potential in other areas too.

Using technology to streamline processes can relieve time constraints and allow pharmacists more time to focus on delivering additional services.

Robotic dispensing, for example, can automate dispensing medication and remove the manual checks and processes needed, that not only require time, but are also open to mistakes when done manually.

Automating this dispensing process frees pharmacists up to have more time to focus on patient care and developing, promoting and delivering additional services.

Collaborating with partners

Collaborating with local businesses or other healthcare providers gives pharmacists an opportunity to become more ingrained in their community, and provides the opportunity to signpost potential patients towards relevant services.

It also allows pharmacists to build interest from partner networks, increasing the potential of making additional sales and can also generate revenue from referrals from other services or partners.

How Michael’s Chemist unlocked revenue with Cegedim

Michael's Chemist, have consistently ranked among the top 20% in the New Medicine Service (NMS) rankings in the UK.

They had been heavily reliant on paper-based systems for NMS, which involved numerous forms, notes and manually tracking patients due for NMS services.

This reliance on paper-based, manual processes led to missed opportunities to complete services and benefit from additional revenue.

Looking for a solution they adopted Pharmacy Services, a mobile platform that allowed the pharmacy group to digitise the NMS process end-to-end, immediately eliminating record duplication and ensuring they didn’t miss any opportunities.

Michael’s Chemist saw NMS revenue triple when comparing Q1 2022 to Q1 2023.

Take advantage of growth potential

While pressures on pharmacy finances continue, the opportunities to generate additional revenue from other services are even greater.

By taking advantage of new opportunities, and making the most of existing products or services with effective marketing, community pharmacies can become more financially stable while providing a better, more comprehensive health service to their community.

If you want more information about generating more revenue for your pharmacy, or more in-depth tips to effectively market your existing services, download our updated Ultimate Guide to Pharmacy Marketing.