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Private online pharmacy website development
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UPW Case: A Triumph in Compliance and Conversions for Private Online Pharmacy

This online pharmacy that operates in the private space clearly needed to work with an agency who knows how they operate to get them out of a sticky situation. Now, they have a new system and a dedicated pharmacy-led agency to supercharge their growth.

About This Pharmacy

A private online pharmacy that extends its services not just across the UK, but globally. Distinguished by its unique variety of products and commitment to customer service, the pharmacy faced significant challenges due to a non-GPhC compliant website and a GPhC inspection that required them to adapt. Positioned for growth, they required urgent and comprehensive solutions.

The Challenge

The pharmacy approached us in the face of distressing circumstances. They have used several agencies in the past but none of them could help them navigate through the evolving GPhC landscape of selling POM’s and P-lines online. Some of the things they were challenged with:

  • Non-GPhC Compliance: An impending GPhC inspection had signalled a multitude of compliance issues on their previous website.
  • Broken Website: Several functionalities of the website were non-operational, creating a less-than-ideal user experience and jeopardising trust and sales.
  • Website Presentation: Poor quality medicinal images, formatting of critical pages and blogs. The website was in need of a huge face-lift.
  • Database Transfer: A massive database consisting of 100’s of products needed to be transferred seamlessly to a new platform, as well as a database of 1000’s of patents.
  • Digital Marketing Bottlenecks: Poor SEO strategies and challenges in paid advertising were shunting online visibility and sales potential.

The pharmacy team desperately needed to work with an agency who could guide them from a pharmacy, marketing and development perspective.

Pharmacy Mentor was the ideal solution.

The Solution

Since this business was already operating, a more detailed discovery session needed to take place, where we covered everything from website technical architecture, website transfer, GPhC compliance, content and marketing. Our discovery sessions with websites of this nature are always led by our CEO, who is a pharmacist, developer and marketeer. He’s usually accompanied by the Web Project Manager and Head of Development/Marketing.

The discovery session is a critical phase, and we developed a plan that consisted of a bespoke website designed around the online prescribing solution we had built i.e. the UPW.

  • Web Design & Development: Designed and built a GPhC-compliant website with a professional aesthetic. The website was constructed on the UPW platform, providing a robust foundation for growth and seamless user experience. We developed bespoke features for this pharmacy in accordance with their unique needs.
  • Database Management: Successfully transferred a large product database to the new system without disrupting sales or user experience
  • SEO and Paid Advertising: Rolled out a new and improved SEO strategy and tactfully circumvented ad blockers, thereby driving targeted traffic to the website
  • Social Proofing: Implemented a new review and testimonial strategy that had traditionally been neglected and forgotten about

The Results

Only nine months down the line, and this online pharmacy is reaping the rewards of working with an award-winning agency, dedicated purely to pharmacy:

  • GPhC Compliance: The pharmacy is now ticking the boxes when it comes to GPhC compliance, reinstating operational viability.

Not all standards were being met by this pharmacy, and their previous website was letting them down. We changed that.

  • Professional, Premium Website: The pharmacy is no longer stuck in the dark age. Their clean, professional website contends amongst the big players out there.
  • Enhanced User Experience: The newly designed website has an improved user experience, enhancing the overall patient experience.

A professional, clean and well-designed pharmacy website is crucial for growth

  • Sales: Almost £250,000 in online sales in the first 8 months of being with Pharmacy Mentor, with an ambitious goal to double this revenue in the next nine.
  • Paid Advertising: We’re continuing to drive revenue successfully from expert advertising, circumventing policy issues, testing new Ad variants and improving overall ad performance
  • SEO Success: We’ve seen a sharp rise in SEO from the consistent, quality content generation and technical improvements. The website is regularly receiving over 250 targeted organic website clicks per day

Going from strength to strength for this pharmacy business. More visibility = more sales

  • Elevated Social Proofing: Generating over 200 5-star reviews bolstering the pharmacy’s credibility and customer trust.

Social proofing is critical in helping a pharmacy website of this type grow

 

What’s next for this pharmacy?

There is a lot of potential for this pharmacy, and we have plans to help them grow. We envisage doubling their revenue in the next year and implementing more advanced marketing tactics to encourage higher user engagement. The sky really is the limit…

Ready to take your pharmacy to the next level?

Whether you have an existing prescribing business online, or you are just starting out, Pharmacy Mentor can help you grow. We’re a team of talented individuals helping pharmacies of all shapes and sizes drive revenue in new ways. Talk to us to see how we can help you:


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UPW Case: A New Era of Growth for Independent Pharmacy in the Midlands

This pharmacy has had one of the best digital starts we’ve seen in the history of launching websites at Pharmacy Mentor. They opted for a UPW system and after 3-months, it has truly changed the way they do business. Let’s explore.

P.s. We created this video using A.I. – what do you think?

About This Pharmacy

This pharmacy is a leading healthcare provider located in the heart of their community offering a range of NHS and private services. The pharmacist himself is an Independent Prescriber. Despite having a strong offline presence, the pharmacy faced significant challenges when it came to digital accessibility and e-commerce capabilities.

The pharmacy owner is forward-thinking and knows the importance of digitising his service offering. However, he needed the right partners to help him get to where he wanted to go.

The Challenge

Prior to engaging with our agency, the pharmacy had an outdated website that failed to meet the modern needs of their business and patients. The key challenges included:

  • Lack of Online Booking System: Patients could not book clinical services online, forcing them to rely on inconvenient phone bookings or walk-ins.
  • Inefficient POM Sales Channel: The absence of an online sales channel for prescription-only medicines meant a loss of potential revenue and increased operational and administrational burden. As the pharmacist himself is an Independent Prescriber, this was a key focus of theirs.
  • User Experience: The previous website was poorly optimised for mobile, lacked intuitive navigation, and had no clear focus on the private services and products the pharmacy wanted to emphasise.

The Solution

Following a discovery consultation with our Growth Team and our CEO, we immediately recognised what solution would be the best fit for the pharmacy owner. As a pharmacist-led organisation, we deeply understand the complexities within pharmacy operations, and the regulations that surround them.

Understanding the need for a complete overhaul, our agency employed the UPW solution – a purpose-built website designed to revolutionise pharmacy operations and patient accessibility. The new website features:

  • Online Booking for Clinical Services: A seamless, user-friendly interface allows patients to book their appointments for clinical services online, streamlining the patient intake process. The booking system is fully customisable with the ability to add risk assessment questions and take payment online.
  • Online POM Sales: The UPW solution integrated a secure, compliant, and effective online ordering system for prescription-only medicines, ensuring the Independent Prescriber could review orders online and have them dispensed by the pharmacist in their store.
  • Optimized for Conversions: Through a meticulous process of A/B testing and analytics assessment, we optimised the website for the private services and products that this pharmacy wanted to promote from the get-go.

The ultimate pharmacy website (UPW) has many, many more features that have not been explained in this case, but you can review them here. The pharmacy owner has a keen digital eye already and therefore the training and setup process was smooth. Before launch, we optimised a few particular products highly in terms of SEO to ensure they got off to the best performing start.

The Results

Within just three months of the website’s launch, the impact has been nothing short of transformative:

  • 300 Bookings: The pharmacy generated over 300 bookings for their private services, highlighting the effectiveness of the online booking system.
  • Over £18,000 in Revenue per month: In the last 30 days alone, the pharmacy has generated over £18,293 in revenue from the sale of only two high-demand POM products, through the website alone. This doesn’t account for people walking into the pharmacy because of finding them online.
  • Enhanced User Experience: Though not quantified, the streamlined and intuitive interface has undoubtedly contributed to increased patient satisfaction and engagement.

The products that we paid particular attention to have driven a significant number of clicks and impressions organically, appearing on page 1 of Google for particular in-demand searches.

Close to 300 bookings generated in three months

 

In the last 30 days, this pharmacy has generated revenues close to £20,000 from two POM products alone

This is only just the beginning of our journey with this innovative pharmacy. They have so much potential to grow with this solution, and we’re not even close to maximising the marketing. The online route is a journey, but a journey worth taking with the right dedication. Your “online” community pharmacy is just as powerful as your physical pharmacy.

Ready to take your pharmacy to the next level?

Book for a demo of our UPW with one of our Growth Specialists and let’s start driving revenue from all angles:


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Boost Pharmacy Retail Sales & Footfall with NearSt

The decline of footfall and consequential retail sales has impacted many Community Pharmacies. NearSt offers an innovative solution for boosting both.

Why should pharmacies appear in local searches? And why is NearSt a great tool for boosting pharmacy retail sales? The points below should convince you of its utility.

  • “Near me” or “close by” type searches grew by more than 900% over the last two years. (Source: Chat Meter) 
  • 83% of online shoppers are willing to go in-store if a product’s availability is guaranteed beforehand. (Source: Google)
  • 47% of pharmacy shoppers want digital inventory management to know if items are in-stock before they go. (Source: PYMNTS, 2022)
  • 78% of location-based mobile searches result in an offline purchase. (Source: SEO Tribunal)
  • 72% of consumers that did a local search visited a store within five miles. (Source: HubSpot Marketing Statistics, 2022)
  • 50% of all local search ends with a visit within 24 hours. (Source: Uberall, 2019)

All of those are applicable to Community Pharmacies. But the “Near Me” searches are where NearSt shines, and where the main benefit for you as a local business comes in.

How does NearSt help Pharmacies?

NearSt solves your community’s problem of needing something immediately but not knowing where it’s in stock. NearSt (hence the name) lets them know where the product is being stocked near them whenever (and wherever) they search for it online.

Anything that solves your customers and patients problems, is an asset for your business.

Turning online shoppers into in-store customers

People shop online for convenience. But waiting even a day for a product isn’t convenient compared with collecting it that same day from a local shop. With healthcare products, it’s even more likely your customers want things immediately.

A real-time view of what local shoppers want

Sir Lord Major General Alan Sugar has a phrase he rolls out every series on The Apprentice – “smell what sells.”

NearSt gives digestible insights into what nearby customers want to make sure your pharmacy is always stocking the right products, by providing real-time information about what shoppers near your pharmacy are searching for.

By stocking the things your community is searching for, and showing up when they search for it, you’re putting yourself in a winning formula which equals sales.

How does NearSt work?

NearSt integrates with your EPOS system and puts your live in-store stock onto Google, as well as product descriptions, price, and images. It’s constantly talking to your EPOS system which means the information online is always up-to-date.

The difference between NearSt and Pointy by Google

Those of you with Pointy might be thinking, I already have that! Well, yes, but not quite. Understanding the difference between Pointy & NearSt took me a while too, but there are critical differences.

The main differences between Pointy by Google and NearSt are:

  • Pointy is hardware, NearSt is software. Instead of having to manually scan your entire product range, it’s uploaded automatically, saving you loads of time.
  • Pointy is owned by Google, therefore only works with Google search engines. NearSt works with every search engine, including Facebook.
  • Because it’s linked with your EPOS system, NearSt has LIVE information about your stock levels, meaning people aren’t making the journey into your store then getting dissapointedd when you have no stock.

What if I’ve got an eCommerce website?

An eCommerce website is a great solution for declining footfall and the increase in online shopping activity. However, it may not solve the problem for patients and customers who need a product right now i.e. on the day and not delivered in 2 days, for example.

Using NearSt, even if you’re an eCommerce brand, you’re offering your patients and customers even more convenience by giving them an immediate solution as well as an online one, where they can go and get the product in store.

Can this work with my Pharmacy Mentor website?

You’re darn right it can! We can integrate NearSt with your website via different means. We can create hyperlinks, embed widgets and more. Get in touch with us to find out how.

Case Study – NearSt

I know you love a good case study, so here’s two for the price of one. (Sorry for the retail pun.)

How a local chemist used NearSt as a no-fuss solution to drive in-store customers

In just 4 weeks, Massingham’s products were discovered over 152,000 times in Google by nearby shoppers, driving 157 new customers in-store. One was noted as saying, “we didn’t know you existed, what a lovely shop!”

How a rural pharmacy got their product catalogue online instantly with NearSt

“It’s been great for us. It’s been useful to give people the opportunity to see what we have available in the shop. Our regular customers also use NearSt to check that we have a product in stock that they already know they want.”

– Nick, Clare Pharmacy

Whilst NearSt don’t operate purely with Community Pharmacies, their existing cases show it works. Knowing what I do about most Community Pharmacies’ desire to increase the retail sales, this for me seemed like an obvious solution.

And there’s no massive commitment, either. Pay monthly just like you would a Netflix account.

Head over to NearSt’s website or email us at growth@pharmacymentor.com and ask us for an introduction.

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