Winning an award is no mean feat, be it at something you have special talent for or something you love doing, or even if it’s an office related task. Being the best requires clear vision, dedication – with time and effort – as well as an interest in the field.
When Paul Howie of Lime Tree Pharmacy and David Roberts of Shelley Pharmacy (both in Worthing and competitors, in effect) joined hands to launch a repeat prescription website, neither of them imagined winning the Pharmacy Business Innovation Award 2008. Not because they did not have a clear vision, but due to the fact that neither had a deep interest in the technology field or even enough time to dedicate to the venture due to their respective positions in their pharmacies.
‘I don’t have a particular interest in IT or the technology world,’ Howie said. ‘However, there are a lot of online pharmacies in existence now so it’s a tried and test path and pharmacies have gone that way anyway.
‘With the advent of the internet, a lot of people, including myself, are shopping online and use the internet not just at home but at work as well. So it only seemed logical and we figured they would want to use the internet to order their repeat prescriptions online rather than driving to the
pharmacy, putting their requests in and following that up with a visit to the pharmacy.’The stigma, as Roberts put it, of being a pharmacy inside a surgery often deterred customers from walking in off the street and shopping there. ‘They [the customers] used to think that if they are not patients at that particular surgery, they could not use the pharmacy,’ Roberts said. ‘So the idea was also born out of how can we could overcome that stigma and we decided to go with the website. People can order prescriptions and made it available to everyone in Worthing [initially] so people realise they can use the pharmacy without being a patient at the surgery.’
The joint venture – myrepeats.com – came about on the back of huge repeat prescriptions concerns by both pharmacies as it formed almost 90 per cent of their business. Although the pharmacies had worked closely on a number of issues, a joint venture was not thought of prior to the website.
‘We were both [pharmacies] concerned with protecting our business so we thought we’d split the risk,’ Howie said. ‘So in one of the review meetings at the surgery, we discussed the idea – to tie our patients in and protect our businesses – and it seemed a good opportunity to cover both bases.’
After much planning and ponder, myrepeats.com was launched in August 2007, initially catering to Worthing only, according to Roberts. However, the success that followed owed much to a ‘little bit of naivety’.
‘We arranged for the web company [that had designed the website] to arrange a press release to send to the local paper and the local radio station in order to get some promotion,’ Roberts said. ‘What we didn’t realise was that the press release goes far and wide and it was picked up by a couple of national publications and before we knew it, we had questions coming right, left and centre enquiring about the venture.’
The website initially underwent a trial phase whereby the robustness and usability of the myrepeats.com was tested by a select few. ‘Following the initial launch, ten pharmacies contacted us – terming it a great idea – and expressing their desire to join us,’ Howie said. ‘We took that up and produced cards for the Pharmacy Show in October 2007. Following that, around fifty pharmacies contacted us and we realised we had to redesign the site to cater for all that.’
Following the relaunch in April 2008, myrepeats has grown to 321 on last count — from just the two when the idea was born.
The day-to-day running of the website is quite simple. The server run by a web design company. Each individual pharmacy part of myrepeats.com has its own virtual back-office and once they are accepted, they get their unique username and password. The pharmacy can then list the surgeries they cater to and the post codes they cover as well as delivery options – majority of the pharmacies offer delivery, even to a work address. There also exists a master administration site, with Roberts taking that up as a part-time job in the evenings. Any order that a patient makes is stored in a separate system that the pharmacy it has been ordered from.
So does the extra workload affect their daily routine?
It has not seemed to affect Roberts that much.‘I don’t work in the pharmacy five days a week so I can spend my free time working the site. Once a pharmacy is registered, I don’t need to do get involved a lot anyway and it’s not a lot of additional work except the random username or password SOS call.’
Howie, however, needs to spend a lot of evenings working on the site. ‘We’ve also had to take on a morning driver as the deliveries have gone up quite significantly [around ten per cent of their total business is done online]. We only had an afternoon delivery before but now we have a van on the road all day [that has been branded with the website name to act as a promotion for the website while on the road].’
While the pharmacies have not felt the need for additional storage space, they may look to employ an administrator for the site. ‘We are looking to employ a part-time administrator who can then provide backup and support to the registered pharmacies. I think it’s essential we provide maintenance and maybe call up the pharmacies and check if everything is ok.’
According to Howie, their online business is growing by ten to 15 per cent each month. ‘A lot of the increase is via our existing customers who we have encouraged to use the site. It not only increases the sales but also protects our business. It also helps us spread as previously around 95 per cent of our business was from just one surgery. Now we cater for every surgery in town. Before we were
doing ten items a month and now we are doing 50 to 100 items in some surgeries.
‘It is also down to increased marketing in the form of the branded van as well as word of mouth and the Pharmacy Show success. We put in a lot of time and effort to make it look an attractive proposition for community pharmacies.’
So how are the two pharmacies benefiting from the venture?
‘Well, currently there is a £100 plus VAT sign-up charge for pharmacies,’ Roberts said. ‘Originally we thought of charging ten pence an item sold via the website but along came Category M and that idea had to be abandoned. We are now trying to generate revenue through advertising and have limited adverts currently on the site.’
Howie hopes to increase advertising spend on the website in the near future. ‘There are adverts on the pharmacists-only area right now and we are hoping someday somebody will want to advertise some OTC prods on the patients page.’
Once the traffic increases on the site, Roberts has plans to get a lot of health information organisations involved and start provide complementing information to visitors besides the option to order repeat prescription while not losing focus of the main objectives and what the site was originally designed for.
While looking for improvements in the design and usability and different modes to improve it, Howie hopes that a lot of independent pharmacists reap rewards and thus help protect business in the future.
‘We would obviously like to increase our current user-base. When EPS is rolled in reliably and it goes live, all the big multiples are going to a big hub sort of dispensaries. In effect, prescriptions can go electronically to any big robot anywhere in the country and patients will be able to order by phone. Our worry is that we will lose a lot of prescriptions that way and I hope other pharmacies will see the threat and sign up with us.
‘If a lot of us get involved then it will not only protect the business but will also create a strong brand in itself that people will know of and trust. That will also help in protecting what happens in the future.’
For someone who did not have a huge interest in pharmacy at a young age, winning the award was a huge achievement for Howie. ‘I didnt have a big interest in going into pharmacy even thought I was doing science-related subjects in school. I didn’t fancy doing medicine but reading around those subjects, pharmacy seemed quite a broad spectrum and covered the subjects I was interested in and there seemed to be a lot of employment opportunities at the end of it.
‘Winning the award was just fantastic, more so because the project we won the award for was done in our spare time. It was great to get the recognition and appreciation as well as feedback.we received. And meeting people that evening, it got us huge publicity.
Regular praise and appreciation also comes from customers in both pharmacies upon noticing the award. And although the future seems uncertain for Howie and Roberts – one looking at a different profession and the other being moved to a business he is oblivious about – the award-winning creation has given a solid platform and one that is destined to win over more community pharmacies as well as an increased customer-base.
© Faras Ghani 2009
Published in Pharmacy Business March 2009
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