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Pharmacies should concentrate on offering added value rather than competing with supermarket prices, a recent meeting of independent pharmacists was told
Local pharmacies should not compete against supermarkets on medicines pricing, but should focus on the added value that they can offer, independent pharmacists were told last week.
Peter Hinkley, sales director for GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare, said the supermarkets were going through a "silly season" in terms of promoting medicines. However, as people may be buying medicines on promotion which they are unlikely to need on a weekly basis, the long-term effects remain to be seen.
Mr Hinkley advised against price reductions in general, as this would reduce profit. Price reductions may persuade some people to buy a medicine if price has put them off in the past, for example smoking cessation products or gastro-intestinal products. But price cutting in oral care had driven out the profit from the market, because people do not brush their teeth more often, he said.
He was speaking at an evening organised by St Albans independent pharmacist Graham Phillips and chairman of the Letchworth Pharmacy Consultative Board for UniChem. About 70 pharmacists attended the event, which took place at UniChem's...