Pharmacies nowadays have gone beyond the obvious, i.e. fulfilling prescriptions and offering health services. They offer a wide range of consumer products of high standards for all ages and all tastes.
Contemporary marketing analysis focuses on gender. Do men and women think, decide and shop in the same way? What intellectual, aesthetic, social and psychological factors influence their final choice? Are they the same for both sexes?
Undoubtedly, women are the biggest audience for a pharmacy, shopping either for themselves or for the persons they love and want to take care of. Numerous studies have adequately analysed the thoughts, motives and goals that drive men and women in their consuming behavior. We have to take for granted that men and women differ in the processing of information and follow unconsciously a different strategy before arriving at a purchasing decision.
Let us look at the two sexes separately:
- Women take into account subjective pieces of information and they follow their emotions.
- On the contrary, men rely more on numbers, statistics and facts, i.e. objective information and factors, before reaching a decision.
Consumer behavior studies conclude that women pay particular attention to the quality of service, they are more easily flattered and they desire the seller’s exclusive attention, looking subconsciously for a beautiful shopping/consumer experience. They also respond more directly to non-verbal stimuli, while in relation to male consumers they are more sensitive to the detailed information about the products they are interested in, without hurrying to reach a final decision.
Conclusively, women retain the leading edge in Consuming Intelligence (Shopping IQ), an important indicator which shows how smart someone acts when consuming. Thus, pharmacists have to understand the way women think in order to identify the trends associated with them and to incorporate them into the operation of their pharmacy. And of course, let us not forget that womens’ role in social and economic terms has been seriously upgraded during the last decades. Modern women wish to prove their strength through their buying behavior.
Focusing on the female market audience, modern pharmacists must follow a pattern of attitudes, tendencies and behaviors that can hardly fail to work.
- Women enjoy browsing, searching, comparing products. Make your space user-friendly and create a high-level environment making use of the principles of visual merchandising.
- Convert the buying experience into a delightful and enjoyable practice. No more long queues or unwilling client service. Always be supportive, explain and help them to decide, make them feel important.
- Convince the female consumers to feel that they benefit from selecting your pharmacy and not that of your competitor.
- Women are more emotional when they consume and your pharmacy is the perfect place to mobilize all their senses. An information screen covers image and sound, while your cosmetic products cover the other three senses. Combine them in a creative and effective way.
- Corporate social responsibility is about your pharmacy’s contribution to the community. Everybody appreciates this, and particularly women may feel better when they know that they contribute to charitable purposes.
The above, along with the personalized approach compose the image of a modern pharmacy. Consumers want to be treated as one of a kind and a satisfied and loyal female customer is a real blessing for the modern retail business.