"Okay, New York, we've had a problem here!"

Just came back from my 11-day business trip in the USA and Caribbean Islands. I cannot refrain from talking about the Covid situation of the pharmacies in the Big Apple.

Almost 1 week spent visiting some of my clients in town, reaching new ones and of course gathering here and there lots of info by walking through different pharmacies in different areas of the city.

My team and I walked an average of 17000 steps a day. We tried?to reach out as many pharmacists as possible and also tried?to understand what's going on,?of course. We went through the following NY neighborhoods: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Coney Island, Mamaroneck Village, Chelsea, Upper East Side and many more.

As far as Pharmacy Chain Branches are concerned, unfortunately my feedback is not very positive.

We visited most of the pharmacy chains in town, and below we enlisted some big mistakes we found:

- 1)?Dirtiness:

most of the branches we visited were very dirty, a lack of hygiene that is unconceivable?for a HEALTH store. The excuse of being visited by hundreds of people a day doesn't help.

The floor is covered by a layer of?dirtiness looking like it has not been there for a day but actually for a few weeks, maybe months, maybe more? Irrespective, it is unbelievably ugly.?I am not here to say how important it is nowadays to show oneself as neat possible, and clean and sanitized as well. But it seemed to me that the basic cleaning rules are missing here!?Who checks and how often are pharmacies cleaned?

Please pay attention to the tidiness of the premises, because the message you are sending to your patients is that you care about them. Why should they come and visit you within a messy scenario? You had better proceed orders online then!

In?Europe?we avoid flooring carpets throughout retail areas for many different reasons:?they can be receptacles of dust and cause allergies and it is certainly not the type of floor that can be sanitized at its best. Especially after the Covid, there is a tendency to use special porcelain stoneware cladding floors.

Active ceramics are the only ones in the world to be?photocatalytic, anti-pollution, antibacterial and antiviral, and they reduce the high maintenance. Moreover, the dirtiness adheres less to the surface facilitating its removal thanks to the photocatalytic properties.

- 2)?Broken Furniture:

putting aside the DANGER of some situations where, for example, an exhibitor unit looks worn out or partially broken and if you do not remove it, a child or an unwary adult could be injured by touching it.

BUT look how you look!

Do you really think people do not see that?

Or just pretend and move on?

Any visitor stepping in will certainly go to another pharmacy.

Shelves that fall or tilt in an embarrassing way, items cracked or torn apart: all this is not acceptable.

Not to mention that the electric cables are always in sight and sometimes even dangerously detached.

Your manager must go around all the branches and periodically check the state (of abandonment?)?of your exhibitors: throw them away or replace them for the safety and image of the brand.

Neglecting a branch means that things are not going well,

is this what you want to make people think of your company?

- 3)?Missing Stock Items:

the totality?of the pharmacy chain branches visited had many shelves and gondolas totally empty.

How visually ugly it can be to find (even in pharmacies located in neighborhoods such as Chelsea and Manhattan) empty shelves and gondolas, temporary exhibitors left to themselves. The result is the same as going through a run-down area.?

Especially in the cosmetics area, many abandoned, empty, lonely, sad pop-ups create a sense of abandonment and physical rejection.

Exactly the opposite of what we want to stimulate in our customers: attraction, sense of positivity, wellness.

You had better re-think your areas with smaller furnished surfaces. Less exhibitors, but kept constantly well-ordered and with a perfect stock of goods.

What is the point of having thousands of SKUs if your end customer sees this?

We need to change the mentality let's use online for quantity and offline for quality.

Did you understand that the market has changed?

Do you understand what people want now, today?

Looking at your pharmacies one does not get that.

- 4)?Lighting flat, too uniform and sad:

It is clear that there is no real lighting study behind those pharmacy concepts, because the Pharmacies are dark, poorly or too cold in intensity, or finally yellowish. In some shops I also found broken lights that constantly turned on and off and for example for a sensitive photophobic person like me this is a big problem: but how can I possibly enter a pharmacy to solve a problem and come out with a headache? Wellness or Badness? Pharmacies must not be a Saturday Night Fever set!...

Light is fundamental and must be studied, loved. Each venue must have a right mix between artificial and natural light (when possible) well mixed together.

Respect your employees, your patients light up your pharmacies well by heading to focal points, where needed. The problem is not solved only by turning on the shelves of beauty, and leaving all the other corners with a sad and flat light.

These tile ceilings look all the same with squared mineral fiber tiles that you seem to like so much because they are cheap.

However, have you ever wondered how much they cost you instead in terms of lost sales?

The American construction companies' excuse is that plasterboard ceilings cannot be inspected. False! Adequate hatches are created but the effect is certainly quite another, and if you really cannot invest in proper lighting, then it is better to keep the ceilings with the systems in sight and go for appealing hanging design accessories.

Remember that a good project is one not only working fine in 2D plan, but in 3D elevation as well!

-?5)?Missing Communications:?

I found communication lacking in almost all chains (except one). Currently, only the macro-categories appear strong in the chains which, however, are sometimes superseded and therefore incorrect in relation to the products shown.

The categories could be studied more in-depth and updated. More graphic efforts would be certainly appreciated, as many times?they look like just a breakdown list of unattractive names.

In this sense, I saw some chain pharmacies taking steps forward, but not in the entirety of the branches. I understand that it is not easy to economically find the resources to update all those?venues,?but if you don't start, the transformation will never happen. We cannot give your customers outdated models that are poorly placed in relation to the current online situation in which almost all of your customers are used to by now.

So... what to do? Have the courage either to change or close the branches that are not working. Reduce the retail footage if you cannot properly?handle it. And?always maintain a high level of quality for all the furniture (are you sure that in 2021, the functionally-practical but horrible-to-look-at metal furniture is still the right choice??There are so many other better solutions...*). The look and layout of the store should come first. Looking after your branches means looking after your customers.

Times have changed, the pharmacy market has changed, the world has changed, why don't you?

* if you want to know HOW change & more:

https://www.sartorettoverna.com/pharmacy-furniture