Perseverance with the retail side of pharmacy can achieve good results, pharmacists at Alphega Pharmacy’s conference in Telford heard this weekend.

About 250 pharmacies have so far signed up for the group’s recently launched free Retail Partnership scheme, said Alphega’s David Alexander.

Participant, independent pharmacist Ashok Mehta of Davina Pharmacy in Tyldesley, told the conference that because retail was only 10 per cent of their business, he’d had initial reservations about getting involved.

‘We did want to improve our image in the retail sector, but was it worth the time and effort we would have to put into it?’

While the change involved ‘was difficult at first’ he expects that the result will increase footfall.

‘I’m expecting benefits to our services income, as well as our retail sales.’ The retail scheme encouraged his pharmacy team to look at retail with ‘a completely new approach,’ he said.

‘For example, in our baby section, we now have a completely new range.’ Mr Alexander said that combined sales data from a trial group of pharmacies showed initial modest sales gains, then a couple of months of loss as a result of replacing lines, but then a rise at months six and seven to over a 23 per cent improvement.

‘I’ve been a retailer for 24 years and I can tell you that these are figures to die for,’ he commented.