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Usman Ali is the regional sales manager at LumenSoft Technologies. He has over a decade of experience in dealing with customers, giving them trainings, and addressing their questions and concerns. Based on his experience, he talks about some of the common mistakes that pharmacy retailers frequently make, and how these mistakes can cost time and money to the pharmacy owners.

(Transcript)

Before I begin sharing my experiences, I want to answer the question about the medicines database that every pharmacy retailer asks. Yes, we provide the latest medicines database with candela pharmacy software. You only need to enter the stock against each medicine that you have. There is no need to define the medicines

Now, let’s talk about the 5 common mistakes that pharmacy retailers should avoid.

Five Common Mistakes by Pharmacy Retailers

1. Adding New Product whenever the Price Changes

Medicines pricing change management, as we have pointed out earlier in our articles, is extremely important. What I have noticed is that some pharmacy retailers manage price change by adding a new item and defining a new code in the system. This means, every time the price of any product changes, they define a new product with the latest price.

This is wrong. Don’t do it.

Adding new codes for every price change can make your stock go haywire. You will not have an exact idea of how much inventory you have.

We have worked extensively on price change in candela pharmacy software. There are video tutorials and article to help you learn how to manage price change.

2. Not Using the Batch Management Feature in The System

Some pharmacy retailers still cling to the old practice of maintaining a manual register for batch management and drug control. They manually maintain data about the sold and purchased drug items, the doctors who recommended them, and the patients prescriptions.

And this manual register is shown to the drug inspectors.

But this is a mistake.

Manual batch management is not just a time-consuming process it is also faulty because it increases the chances of human error.

We need to take advantage of the new advancements in technology. Candela pharmacy software has a batch management module that streamlines the entire flow of batch management. Check the video tutorials and follow the instructions.

3. Not Managing Expiry of Medicines

Pharmacy retailers know that drugs can reach expiry dates before the entire stock is sold out. In pharmacy retail, if you don’t manage expiry you can’t control stock. The medicines with imminent expiry dates have to be returned to the supplier 3 to 4 months in advance. If you fail to do so, you can suffer losses.

What I have noticed is that some pharmacy retailers hire a person to handle the expiry of medicines. The person responsible for managing the expiry of medicine counts the medicines, notes down the expiry dates on the paper, and then based on this ‘manual report’ the stock with imminent expiry dates is set aside!

Don’t make this mistake.

Instead of hiring a separate person for physically noting down the expired medicines, simply generate a report from the system and return the stock to the company before the due date.

Getting your expiry under control is crucial. If you are still doing it manually, there will always be chances of errors. And what will happen when you scale up your business?

4. Not Using the Home Delivery Module in the System

More than 80 percent of pharmacies are doing home delivery at some scale, but most of them are doing it manually. They receive the order on phone, note it down on paper, and then deliver the order through a rider. Next time, if the same customer calls again, they repeat the entire process of noting down the details, etc.

Again, a big mistake.

We have worked extensively on the home delivery module in candela pharmacy software. I would strongly recommend all pharmacy retailers to use this module. The module manages end-to-end processes involved in handling customer orders, route planning, medication delivery, proof of medicine delivery, and product returns during delivery.

All details of the customers are saved in the system along with the medicines they require. And if any customer calls again, you would immediately know who the person is and can address the customer by name.

Moreover, in the home delivery module, you can keep track of the medicines a particular customer requires. If the order being booked is for a medicine that the customer might need regularly, like in the case of diabetes or blood pressure medicines, you can enter the interval after which the medicine will be needed. And the system will send you an alert.

When the rider leaves, you can send an alert to the customer that you will receive your medicine within so much time through a certain rider.

So those who are not using the home delivery module, they should use it to run their business in a better way.

5. Not Handling Day-End Closings in the System

Pharmacies generally run on shifts to manage long hours. Some are open for 14 hours a day, some 12 hours a day, and some run 24/7. No matter what the shift system you are using, day closing is important.

I have seen some pharmacy retailers doing manual closing in a separate register. They count sales, enter cash sales, count and enter expenses and close the register

Not really a smart way to manage your retail business.

The Day-closing feature in Candela pharmacy software is quite systematic. You can know the exact status of cash sales, credit sales, all your expenses, etc. For example, if your day’s sale is 50,000 and you have made supplier payments worth 200000, the system will show the balance as -150000. You can thus have a clearer picture of your cash in hand, expenses, payments due, etc.

Shared above are some of the observations I made during my interactions with pharmacy customers. In the next video, I will share more experiences.

If you want to ask me something about the mistakes discussed above, or any other issue, feel free to write to me in the comments section below. Thanks