For years, grocery store pharmacies have tried to compete with discount stores, dollar stores, corner drug stores and mail-order suppliers. But for years, they’ve overlooked the biggest competitive advantage they have:
The grocery store.
In a recent Supermarket Guru column, Phil Lempert reminds grocers of that very point. (Click here to link.)
Implications: Glad I’m not the only one who things of this as blatantly obvious. When you fill or renew a prescription, why not provide cross-department incentives like these?
- For diabetics: A shopping list of lo-carb snack ideas, along with the aisle-address of where to find each item.
- For cardiac or cholesterol prescriptions: A few recipe cards with heart-healthy meal ideas, or a list of benefits associated with various fruits and vegetables (and a map to the produce department).
- With the purchase of cold and flu remedies: A cents-off coupon on a can of chicken soup (the kind mom fed you to make you feel better when you were a kid).
- For osteoporosis patients: Coupons for calcium-rich dairy products that could enhance bone health.
Even for a category as “prescribed” as grocery store pharmacies, opportunities surface when you stop thinking about the products sold, and start thinking about the target consumer who buys, and why. And you’ll create a grocery/pharmacy value proposition that is difficult to match in other drug store channels.
Mike Anderson
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What a great idea to provide cross department incentives!
ReplyDeleteIf I'm picking up cold medicine and the retailer gives me a coupon for Chicken Noodle Soup or Orange Juice - I would recommend the retailer to my friends.
Beyond marketing genius ... this saves consumers time and money.