PHARMACY LAYOUT AND

DESIGN
Bilal Hassan
M. Phil Pharmaceutics
PHARMACY LAYOUT
DEFINITION

Lay out are the components of physical facilities of

retail pharmacy.
 Design is the internal and external appearance of
retail outlet.
 Layout is the space allocation and arrangement of
drugs in drug store
Types of layout designs
 There are following three types of layout
designs:
 Clerk or personal service
 Self selection
 Self service
CLERK OR PERSONNEL
SERVICE
 In clerk service pharmacy layout design only a
small part of products are exposed to customer to
handle
 In the setup there is no provision of self service or
self selection.
 This design facilitates maximum interaction
between customer and pharmacy personnel.
 This is old traditional design and available in small
pharmacy stores.
 There is no provision of self service or self selection.
 This type of layout design exists for prescription and
selected non prescription drugs, surgical and orthopedic
appliances and supplies.
SELF SELECTION
The products are displayed in a manner that the consumers may
see and select items themselves.
As mentioned before that prescription items has no possibility
of self selection.
It could be for the nutritional supplements, cosmetics,
contraceptives and other OTC health related item .
 A retail setup cannot run totally on self
selection bases on account of the
availability of prescription drugs.
SELF SERVICE
The term self service is restricted for layout utilizing
the minimum of clerk service and exposes the max of
products for customer to handle.
It is not possible to have hundred percent of self
service in pharmacy because of the prescription and
items.
This type of layout is most often used in the super drug stores
but for the non drug items and commodities such as cosmetics
and nutritional supplements.
STYLES OF LAYOUT
DESIGN
 Various arrangements are available with the same functional
purposes.
I. Creation of pleasant environment and image of the interior
II. Shopping with enjoyment
III.Encouraging customer traffic
IV.Motivating impulse buying by browsing and exploring store by
spending more money than originally planned.
LAYOUT DESIGNS FOR
PHARMACIES
 Grid layout
 Free flow layout
GRID LAYOUT
 In the grid layout design, all fittings and counters are installed at the
right angle to one another.
 The products are displayed in straight and parallel lines
 This arrangement makes customer movement past a wide
assortment of products displayed.
 Space utility is productive with this layout design.
 The customers movement is in a structured way.
 This in turn leads to a maximum travel time
 in the store and thus maximum product
exposure. This product exposure is known as
front-end-merchendising.
Advantages of grid layout

 There are many advantages of grid layout that are as following;

 More product exposure
 Familiarity with products that can be needed in future
 Simplified security and minimum pilferage
 Maximum utilization of available space
 Ease in cleaning.
Grid lay out with out cross aisles
Grid layout without cross aisles
FREE FLOW LAYOUT
 In free flow plan fixtures are irregularly shaped such as
circles, arches and triangles.
 This design allow an unstructured flow of customer traffic.
 This design has great visual appeal
 However such designs are costly and use space non
productively.
Free wandering of a customer encourages browsing and impulse
purchasing is more as compared to that possible in pharmacy store
with grid layout.
This layout design has greater visual appeal, however such designs
are costly, the free flowing can be accomplished with the various
layout arrangements.
Arrangement of individual products

The products can be arranged by package size, color, brands

customer’s in open displays help impulse buying. Thus the
products with more demand and more profits are displayed
at prominent place.
The eye level positions are more attractive as compared to
the position at bottom shelf.
RETAIL COMPETITION

 The retail competition is gaining of differential advantages

over the competitors with the intention of increase in sale
and thereby ,profit.
 The ways by which a retail pharmacy can get edges over
competitors are appropriate location, price and effective
promotion, buying decision and differential personnel and
services.
LOCATION

 Location is the critical factor for the future and survival of a

retail business thus need special consideration and careful
planning.
 Various success parameters depend on the appropriate selection
of the location of a retail business.
 Before opening a drug store following consideration must be
taken into account.
POPULATION

 Majority of consumers are drawn from within a

relatively short distance from the retail outlet.
 The population indwelling in the surrounding area
of a proposed area must be considered before
opening a Retail business.
 The other population characteristics to be taken
in account consists of growth trends age
distribution income distribution prescription
buying behavior and occupational trends.
POPULATION DEMOGRAPHY
 Demography includes the community parameters such as age sex
family life cycle stage, income distribution, education, or
occupation.
 Effective planning of a successful retail pharmacy takes study of
surrounding demography into account. Pharmaceutical products sale
will depend on all of demographic variables.
 In a community the children teenagers couples with children
females, people with more income are potential consumers .
SOCIOECONOMY
Socioeconomic characteristics of population in the
immediate area of purposed location must be
evaluated
The socioeconomic characteristics include the
market family income and purchasing power
population density etc.
 Social class such as upper class, middle
class(white coller),middle class and working class
has a considerable influence on product demand
and buying behavior.
POPULATION PSYCHOGRAPHY
 Population psychography is the psychological
characteristics influencing the buying motives and include
the learning experience, personality and the beliefs.
 The community trends towards the medical treatment and
demand for a specific health care service is influenced by
beliefs, cultural traditions and the population inclinations.
 Establishing an allopathic retail pharmacy is a
community which likes alternative ways of
treatments, would not be successful, thus the
psychography of the surrounding population is one
of the major parameter for acceptance of a retail
pharmacy.
CONSUMER’S ACCESABILITY
 The consumers always prefer conveniently accessible
locations of a retail pharmacist. The traffic flow, parking
facilities and availability of public transport determine the
customers accessibility.
 In big cities retail store located on one way roads, roads
with impeded traffic flow and muddy or damaged roads
are not considered convenient locations .
EXPECTED FLOW OF CUSTOMERS
 The flow of potential customers influence sales and must be
evaluated prior to select a location.
 The customers traffic flow can be evaluated directly to
indirectly.
 A close proximity to physical/medical centers and hospitals
will obviously help in predicting the patient traffic to a retail
outlet.
NATURE AND LOCATION OF
COMPETITION
 The nature and location of competition must be understood to cope and to
compete with it.
 Presence of an established chain store or a store with more investment can
pose difficulty for a new business.
 For understanding the nature of competition the number of competitors
size distribution of competitors and growth trends of competition must be
predicted.
PRICING
 Usually the consumers are price conscious, thus price seems to be an effective
and easiest tool to promote sale, however some consumers relate price to the
quality of products.
 In spite the low price tactics is the quickest way to move product; there are some
problems related with low prices;
 Not effective in directed goods
 Boost sale only temporary
 Brings profit margin below healthy level
 Can create bad image of retail store.
THANK YOU!