Shane Bartle There is an increasing need for pharmacies to build an online presence, with a particular focus on ensuring a superior mobile experience, says Shane Bartle, CEO of e-commerce company Storbie. Bartle recently drew on his expertise and knowledge in the field of e-commerce and multichannel retail to inform pharmacy owners and managers as to the importance of having an online presence at the inaugural Pha
rmacy Business Network (PBN).
Bartle shared insights into what is happening in the consumer health market, how it is changing and how pharmacies can adapt in order to attract and retain the modern consumer.
“Pharmacies typically rely on location to attract a particular pool of customers living in the area or who happen to be in the area when they need pharmacy products. Ensuring a superior customer experience on mobile is especially important to reach these customers,” he says.
“It may be a simple search on a mobile device to find out the location of the nearest pharmacy and their opening hours. By registering with the free Google My Business tool, pharmacies can make sure their information shows in search results.
“However, there is also reason to provide much more content online in order to be seen as the experts in consumer health, and keep customers coming back.
“If pharmacies get really smart about building their online presence and online marketing activities, it will be a no-brainer for consumers to continue making habitual purchases with them, with the potential of upselling with one-off items.”
Bartle points out that many consumers won’t even consider transacting with a company that does not have a strong online presence to go with their physical store presence.
“Now, that online presence must also be mobile-friendly,” he says.
“A website should serve as a company’s central hub in today’s modern marketing world.”
A 2013 Accenture study shows that 89 per cent of consumers want businesses to offer multichannel retailing but only 26 per cent of consumers are satisfied with the mobile shopping experience.
Bartle outlines some further key reasons for pharmacies to be visible online. “For many businesses, online sales may only account for up to 10 per cent of sales, but online plus web influenced offline sales now make up over 50 per cent of all sales. This is especially important for pharmacies, as consumers are increasingly searching for health information online before going instore to purchase.”
The Pharmacy Guild’s Pharmaceutical Services Limited (PSL) is on board to help pharmacies get online and have collated an online product catalogue of the top 100 pharmacy-stocked products. This will make it even easier for pharmacies to get started with a core catalogue of products which they can then build on.
