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Drugstores fight for their existence

this Is still a drugstore or a Department store? If you shop in a Müller-drogerie market, depending on the location, also party items, organic foods, toys, DVDs

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Drugstores fight for their existence

this Is still a drugstore or a Department store? If you shop in a Müller-drogerie market, depending on the location, also party items, organic foods, toys, DVDs, Stationery, stockings and socks, as well as "Everything for the Knitting, Crocheting and sewing".

What sounds to load to grocery, appears to be a viable concept. Müller in Switzerland, now has over 50 locations. The classic drugstores, however, losing ground: ten years Ago, the druggist Association had 560 members. Today, there are still nearly 500 enterprises. And without the Müller-markets, some of which are member of the Union, it would be only 460 drugstores.

The number could fall further. The Website of the industry Association also serves as a marketplace for the sale of drugstores. So, among other things, the successor to holdings in Langnau in the Emmental, in Switzerland, delémont and Lausanne are searched currently. The search for buyers is not easy and the listings are often many months online.

Galenica builds range from

in Most cases, the drugstores can be maintained in spite of declining profitability until the Retirement of the owner – new to the business, hardly anyone wants to get in then but. Sometimes the Bernese pharmacies grabs and the drugs trade group Galenica then a location. Galenica operates but no drugstores, but be transformed by the locations, either in a pharmacy (as happened recently in Biberist SO) – or it closes and guides the customers to the nearest in-house pharmacy like the recent one in Zollikofen BE.

This is possible, because many of the Galenica pharmacies have become in the last few years, to drugstores. The 350 shops, which operate under the brands of Amavita, Coop Vitality and Recognized, often lead to extensive product ranges in the fields of cosmetics, perfumery, food and the detergent. To lead a pure drugstores, is for the Galenica group, however, is not an Option, as member of the Executive Board Daniele Madonna says. "The customers know that they can get drugs."

in the Future is likely to be the Galenica pharmacies for the drug stores for an even tougher competition. Because in order to compensate for the falling margins in drugs, deepen the pharmacies their range of specialised cosmetics, as well as in alternative medicine. So, Galenica has bought a minority stake in the Globules manufacturers Spagyros from Worb, and entered with him into a partnership.

in addition to the pharmacies, also detail to make the druggists retailers such as Migros and Coop. "Today, many drugstore products are also the major distributors is available – this was not so," says Heinrich Gasser from the druggist Association. The pharmacies have copied the ranges of the drugstores, holds Gasser "in the face of rapidly declining margins in the trade with drugs" for their "right".

medicines from the druggists

As the remaining drugstores can survive in the Sandwich between pharmacies and super markets? Some of the drugstores in order to transform itself in a pharmacy, so that you can offer a bigger range of products. This is associated with high costs and is worthwhile only if there is not already a pharmacy in the vicinity. The druggist Association expects that in the next few years, only five to ten businesses in pharmacies to be converted.

The rest of the drugstores have to try with niche offerings and advice stand out. Gasser from the druggist Association, stressed that the go back of total sales of drugstores of a year nearly 900 million Swiss francs is currently impossible, but simply to reduce the number of locations distributed.

And there is a small ray of light for the Swiss Druggists and druggists: The Federal government liberalized currently, the remedy provisions. In the future, the drug stores should be allowed to sell additional 550 drugs that were previously reserved for the pharmacies, including popular products like influenza drugs, pain pills, and homeopathic tinctures.

(editing Tamedia)

Created: 12.03.2019, 22:01 Uhr

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