In the last issue I gave you a number: £28,000 a year.
That was the value of lifting your attachment rate from 1 in 10 to 2 in 10: ninety more customers a week buying something alongside their prescription.
It was a real number. It was also the wrong one.
£28,000 was revenue. Revenue doesn't pay your rent. Profit does.
The instinct after you count
If you ran the tally, you probably found your attachment rate lower than you expected. Most people do.
And the next thought is almost always the same: we need to train the staff to upsell.
But training teaches people how to recommend. It doesn't tell anyone what each sale is actually worth to you. And most owners don't know that either, product by product.
So let's work it out for one product.
One shelf, two packs
Two packs of paracetamol, side by side. Both 16 tablets of 500mg.
One is a well-known brand. One is a generic.
These are real UK figures, from a wholesaler's published prices:
Well-known brand | Generic | |
|---|---|---|
Shelf price | £2.29 | £0.59 |
VAT (goes to the government) | − £0.38 | − £0.10 |
What the pharmacy keeps | £1.91 | £0.49 |
What the pharmacy paid | − £1.38 | − £0.32 |
Profit per pack | 53p | 17p |
The brand makes the pharmacy 53p. The generic makes 17p.
Why this surprises most owners
Most owners think in percentages. And in percentages, the generic wins:
Generic: 17p profit out of 49p = 35%
Brand: 53p profit out of £1.91 = 28%
That's why so many of us believe "generics make more money."
But you can't pay rent with a percentage. You pay it with pounds. And in pounds, the brand brings in about three times more per sale.
Percentage tells you how efficient a sale is. Pounds tell you what it's worth.
Small numbers, big shelf
The difference on one pack is only 36p.
But pharmacies sell a lot of paracetamol. At 100 packs a week, that 36p becomes about £36 a week, or over £1,800 a year.
From one product, on one shelf.
This is not "push the brand"
Look at the table again from the customer's side. The brand costs them £1.70 more for the same tablets.
Steering someone into that because it suits your till is exactly how a pharmacy loses trust.
What's right for the person always comes first: their symptoms, their age, their other medicines, and what they'd prefer. When two products are both genuinely right for them, give them an honest choice at honest prices.
A customer who's shown the cheaper option and still picks the brand is happy. So are you.
The real money isn't made by steering people at the counter. It's made behind it: in what you stock, what you pay for it, and what you charge.
Two things that change your pounds
The supermarket sets your ceiling. Some supermarkets sell well-known brands for less than a pharmacy pays its wholesaler. Match their price and you lose money on every pack. On those products, don't try to win on price.
Your wholesaler matters. The same brand pack can earn more than twice as much, depending on where you buy it. Your own invoices will tell you which.
The Potheko Move
Pick ten products where you stock a brand and a cheaper version: pain relief, children's medicines and hay fever are a good start.
For each one, work out one number: profit per pack, in pounds. That's your shelf price without VAT, minus what you paid without VAT.
Then rank them.
One thing to do this week
Build that list of ten. Don't train anyone yet. Don't move any stock yet. Don't change a price yet.
Just find out what each sale is actually worth. You can't point your team at the right products until you know which ones they are.
When you've built it, hit reply and tell me what surprised you. I read every one.
The figures in this issue are real published UK wholesale prices; I've left the product names out. If you'd like the real data behind them, just reply and I'm happy to share it.
This issue was about the products on your shelf. Next week: the customer who walks in with no prescription at all, just a problem and a question. They're your best customer. And fewer of them are asking than three years ago.
Pollyanna