Dear dfkosu,
In addition to the proposals given below in the form of Comments, I
would like to offer my own advice. As a small, human-scaled operation,
a mom-and-pop drugstore can compete successfully with a faceless corporate
giant by exploiting its own advantages.
The large corporation will almost always beat the mom-and-pop drugstore
on pricing for products it carries, since it has the mass buying power
and the ability to absorb losses, but it won't carry everything. In fact,
by its very nature as a generalist operation, a big-box retailer will not
carry a full selection of items in every product range. A mon-and-pop
drugstore should therefore position itself primarily as a supplier of
specialty products that cannot be obtained at the big-box retailer on
the outskirts of town.
A repeated theme in the comments below is that the smaller drugstore
should convert itself partially or entirely into a business of a different
nature, such as a card shop or a gift store, but I'm not sure that's
necessary. In fact, the drugstore's business of pharmaceutical products
offers an especially favorable playing field for competing with the
generalist retailer, since the responsible and effective sale of drugs
requires the kind of personal service and technical knowledge that a
small, dedicated enterprise is better positioned to provide.
Consumers may well decide to pick up their cards, chewing gum, and other
gimcracks at the big box at the same time that they buy a variety of
household supplies, but they will think twice before risking their health
on an unwise or ineffective pharmaceutical purchase. I believe that the
cornerstones to success are to offer the drugstore shopper better variety,
service, and knowledge than the giant discounter is able to provide.
VARIETY
The mom-and-pop operation can offer a greater variety of goods within
each category of pharmaceutical product, but it can also supply entire
categories in which the big box doesn't deal at all, since the latter
concentrates on the most popular items and the ones with the biggest
margins. The mom-and-pop operators would do well to visit their
competition and note everything that isn't carried there.
The big box may be well stocked with bandages and analgesics, but what
does it offer in the way of prosthetic devices? Suppositories? Herbal
medicines? The smaller operation can establish itself as the primary
resource in town for products from a particular supplier or within
a particular product range. If it carries a full line of, say, skin
creams or anti-allergens, it should place these products prominently
in the store and also use this fact in its advertising. The generalist
retailer is helpless to respond.
In fact, the mom-and-pop operation will find that there are products
on which it can beat the pricing of the retail giant. I have myself
found a certain selection of goods, such as boxed tea and rechargeable
batteries, that I do not buy at my regional big-box retailer, where
they are evidently mispriced. In any case, the big box never has a very
good selection of anything. They only carry two brands of multivitamins
in three formats, whereas a competitive specialty retailer will carry
ten brands in all conceivable doses and flavors, including a few with
especially favorable pricing that draws me away from the big box.
SERVICE
A small neighborhood operation will get to know its customers in a way
that a big box's many interchangeable employees never can. Then again,
experience has shown that it is unwise to rely on mere customer loyalty
as a substitute for the giant retailer's pricing advantages, as time and
again people who were thought to be close acquaintances or even friends
of a neighborhood business operator quickly abandoned ship when a big
box came to town.
The smaller enterprise can never be complacent or take its customers'
habits for granted. It is in poor taste, in my view, to pander to their
sense of obligation by reminding them of their longstanding patronage or
by addressing personal letters to them. Such unprofessional behavior is
liable to drive away customers in the long run. I myself would think it
untoward of a small-business operator to address me familiarly unless
he was also a neighbor or a relative of mine, and I would bristle at
any attempt to drum up business from me by issuing reminders of our
acquaintance. Business is business, after all, and customers generally
grant stores access to their wallets based on calculated purchasing
decisions, not on sappy emotional ones.
Thus, rather than using personal acquaintance as a stick with which
to beat the customer's conscience in an attempt to keep them away
from the big box -- an attempt which will most probably turn out to
be counterproductive -- the savvy small-business operator uses it as
a basis on which to provide better service to customers. Although the
operator should never presume to know what a customer wants before she
asks for it, a detailed knowledge of her past shopping history can indeed
help to make an informed decision as to what products she may fancy in
future categories of interest. This is the sort of fine-grained marketing
information that large retailers would love to get but rarely do.
If a customer has a foot problem, for example, the local druggist can take
the time to find the best shoe inserts for her particular case among the
many possibilities. This is time that big-box employees don't have. The
small retailer can also order specialty products that a discounter,
who achieves savings by purchasing en masse, typically cannot. Later,
having seen that the customer regularly purchases shoe inserts, the local
druggist can go on to suggest related products such as joint supports
and topical analgesics to treat the customer's discomfort.
KNOWLEDGE
Finally, and perhaps most importantly in the case of pharmaceutical
products, the small retailer can bring greater information resources to
bear on a select clientele. A big-box retailer that sells prescriptions
will of course have a pharmacist on staff to make up orders and advise
customers, but such a pharmacist has too large and varied a clientele to
research specific information for particular people or even for particular
fields of medicine. By establishing themselves as the most knowledgeable
dispensers of herbal treatments or of allergy medication, for example, the
mom-and-pop operation can secure a profitable slice of the local market.
This is in addition to the particular knowledge it can develop of its
customers' ailments, especially those poor souls who suffer from chronic
or recurrent conditions. Someone who regularly suffers gastric distress
or back pain, for example, will appreciate going to a small retailer
where a staff member understands the condition well, has discussed the
symptoms of this one sufferer before, and can respond knowledgeably to
future inflections and permutations of the condition.
The elderly, in particular, are regrettably disposed to suffering from
multiple, interrelated ailments at once. They are often alienated by
the harsh lighting and impersonal dimensions of a general discount
store, feeling with good reason that they cannot receive the patient,
personalized advice there that a good neighborhood retailer will offer. It
is the mom-and-pop operation's duty, if it wishes to do well, to justify
this trust by spending time with their elderly patients, stocking a good
variety of products especially for them, and keeping themselves informed
on new products and recent developments in geriatric care.
In conclusion, all is not lost when a big-box retailer comes to town. It
simply means that a small neighborhood drugstore must work conscientiously
and energetically to carve out that segment of the market that is
not served by a bulk-sales strategy of unremitting price-cutting and
large-scale efficiency. This means stocking products in pharmaceutical
categories that are underserved or not served at all by the big box;
carrying a better selection of products within each category; beating the
large retailer's price points on select products and loudly advertising
this fact; listening patiently to customers and giving them educated,
closely researched product recommendations; and catering to those
customers, such as the elderly, sufferers from esoteric ailments, and
the chronically sick.
Remember, the big-box retail giant is deliberately not designed as an
optimal shopping environment for all people at all times. The mom-and-shop
operation can stay in business and even prosper by intelligently directing
its provisioning and marketing resources toward certain people and to
all people at certain times.
I hope my answer assists you in your efforts. If you should find that
anything is unclear or incomplete, don't hesitate to post a Clarification
Request so that I can meet your needs before you assign a rating.
Regards,
leapinglizard |
