The next stage is to review what your pharmacy does to attract and retain the customers you currently serve. You may also wish to start planning how you are going to attract your future customers to new income streams. A useful activity is to jot down on a side of A4 paper (one per key customer segment) how your business will attract and retain that customer segment. For example, many community pharmacies have 'parents of young children' as an important, but largely declining, customer segment. The same thinking process can be used for any of your customer groups:

Consider the categories of child-related products you have in your pharmacy, such as baby food and nappies. As margins are often very tight on such products, you need to balance the space you devote to these categories against the expectation of your customers to stock them. Analysis of EPOS data is a key tool for looking at this more closely.

Questions to ask yourself include:

• Does your local GP surgery have a children's formulary? If you are dispensing a number of prescriptions for children it makes sense to have those items in your dispensary's inventory (such as a particular type of antibiotic, inhaler mask and so on)
• For product categories that are child related (such as baby food), contact the manufacturer to see what offers and point of sale materials they can send you €“ is there a sales representative who can help to merchandise the area for you?