Is DM Merchandising the Right Move?

Nichole Lockett

(00:11):

Alright, well, hello and welcome to our quick sit down with our newest IPC vendor DM Merchandising. My name is Shannon Battle and I’m the pharmacy services manager here at Independent Pharmacy Cooperative and I’m excited to bring you all a new opportunity for pharmacy revenue. Today I am here with Nicole Lockett, who’s our account executive from DM merchandising. Nicole, I’m so excited to actually sit down and get to learn a little bit more about DM merchandising. It’s a huge offer for our pharmacies and I really would love to hear a little bit more about your work with DM merchandising, kind of a background and what our members are really gaining here.

Shannon Battle

(00:46):

Absolutely. Shannon, thank you so much for this opportunity. I’m really excited to talk with you today and present to you and IPC members all of the great opportunities that we have to increase retail sales. So again, my name is Nicole. I am with DM merchandising and I have been here for several years. The vast majority of the customers that I personally work with are small businesses and then I also have a special interest in the health and pharmaceutical spaces. That’s because my background prior to being with DM merchandising, I was actually in healthcare management. So I think I have a unique perspective into understanding the landscape that pharmacies work in, especially when it comes to getting reimbursed from payers that are consistently tightening their purse straps.

(01:37):

And it’s an ever changing climate that you always have to stay on top of. In a climate like that, it’s really important for small businesses to diversify and not put all of their eggs in one basket. And this is where DM merchandising comes in to really help in that retail aspect. Pharmacies have a great advantage because you’re already providing a necessary service. You want to add on top of that some eye-catching gift and impulse items. It’s going to be a quick and sure way to increase your sales and become a convenient one-stop shop for all of the members in your community. And that’s our goal in DM merchandising. The best thing that DM merchandising can offer for independent pharmacies, first and foremost is going to be let DM be your warehouse. We understand that a lot of the customers that we work with, especially being small businesses, do not have the space to have unlimited inventory storage.

(02:41):

DM was actually built on selling to hospital gift shops and they have no stock room whatsoever. And all these years later, 35 years later, we still operate with that mentality. So our minimum order amount is only ever a hundred dollars and that means that your don’t have to commit to a huge buy-in and housing inventory that they simply don’t have the space for. On top of that, our orders usually ship within 48 hours. We recognize that the small businesses that we’re working with are not having the opportunity to do inventory weeks and weeks in advance. These are busy individuals who are operating their businesses and then going home at 10 o’clock at night and taking care of their families. And we want to be able to be accessible for those small businesses. So you can do your inventory quickly, say, oh my goodness, I need to reorder right now, put in your order on the website and you’re going to have that order within a few days.

(03:42):

The great thing is that we also have retail merchandising solutions. So many of our items come in PDQ displays, so you’re going to get that order a couple of days after you placed it online. You take it out of the box, you put it on your shelf, and you are done with it and you move on with your day and your multiple other responsibilities. Oh yeah. We also understand that not everybody has the shelf space even to put just one small displayer out. So we make it so that most of our products are also pable so that you can work around the space that you already have. And additionally, we also have several different small footprint floor displays. So you can really merchandise different items that go together that cross merchandise. You can put those all in one space without losing so much real estate, so to speak, in an already very tight space.

Nichole Lockett

(04:38):

So do all of your products have displays that correlate with them or is it kind of mix and match? You can choose if you want to use them or not.

Shannon Battle

(04:46):

It’s almost all of our products. So the vast majority of our assortments do come in PDQ displays, and then we do have other items that don’t necessarily come in displayers that’s going to be more of your apparel items. Footwear though, even though those items don’t ship in their own display, we then have dedicated complimentary displays depending on how many assortments you order that you can display those items on. So we have merchandising solutions of all sorts regardless of how you place your orders.

Nichole Lockett

(05:20):

That part I love because as pharmacists and pharmacy owners, we didn’t go into business to design a front store and having that part already built in, having that all set up for me and the marketing aspects of it already put together is a huge time and stress reliever for our stores. For sure.

Shannon Battle

(05:39):

Yeah, exactly. And I mean, let’s be honest, not all of us are our marketing whizzes. You have other responsibilities, lots of other responsibilities, especially being an independent pharmacy and spending hours on hand trying to merchandise and figure out what goes and how you’re going to fit it, it’s just not realistic. We want you to be able to focus your attention where you need to focus it. Let us take the guesswork out of it for you.

Nichole Lockett

(06:08):

So this year and last year especially, a lot of our stores are really trying to find other revenue streams, trying to find that niche in their community and they’re really getting bogged down with the same old front end items, what’s available in a convenience store, what’s available in a corner store, what can I add to maybe turn this into a boutique type store, which again, is not their specialty. So what types of items, excuse me, from your catalogs or from just your product lines in general, are you seeing really beneficial in pharmacy or maybe something that our owners haven’t thought of to meet their community needs or interests that they can kind of drum up within conversation and really learn what’s going to work for them?

Shannon Battle

(06:48):

Yeah, absolutely. Well, first and foremost, we recognize that not every item is going to do great everywhere. Something that sells in one location to one demographic in one climate is not necessarily going to be the best seller at the next door in an entirely different location. And you have members that are all over the country. So we know that what sells best in place A is not necessarily going to be the best seller in place. B, we have the variety to make sure that all of your members are able to procure retail items that are going to be successful in their communities. We have thousands of different line items and over 20 different brands. We have self-care items, we have gift and impulse, cold weather accessories, footwear, we have readers, purses, loungewear, jewelry. There’s really something that’s going to work for every single demographic, every location, and it’s going to differ from location to location.

(07:53):

We really want to be that one stop for everyone to get their retail needs. Now that being said, there are some things that we do see do well across the board, and one of those things that I recommend to all of the pharmacies that I work with is actually our bag line purses and accessories. That’s kz. KZ is a really awesome line. We have luxury looking bags made of really nice vegan leather at very affordable prices. I find that something like this does really well in pharmacies because you have people that are coming in taking care of their daily necessities, they’re picking up scripts, they’re picking up items for home, they’re picking up band-aids for the kids, and you have the mom who’s walking through the aisles and sees an excellent cross body bag that can house all of the snacks that she’s taking to soccer practice.

(08:49):

Or you have the husband who didn’t quite, but almost forgot his anniversary and sees a gorgeous bag that his wife is going to love and he can grab that out the door as he’s walking away with his scripts for the rest of the month. So something like KZ does really well across the board. The great thing with dm, all of our products, you’re going to be seeing at least a 50% profit margin. So this is huge for small businesses. Tezi in particular is going to be even a higher profit margin. So those are more like 55 to 65% margin. So it’s an opportunity to really increase your profits without having to put a whole lot of energy into it.

Nichole Lockett

(09:34):

Absolutely. I do get the emails from DM merchandise and they come through every now and then, and just this morning I got one with new spring items, plant accessories and things like that. And I can just think of all the plant lovers that would walk through my stores that I worked in, and they would absolutely impulse buy any of those little accessories, the kid items. And I love the emails that come through that are really targeted to different items. I think that’ll help store owners realize those things that they’re not really thinking about throughout the day with their customers. So that’s really good to hear.

Shannon Battle

(10:05):

Yeah, absolutely. And the great thing is that not only is it just that one impulse item, right? We make all of our items so that they can be cross merchandise. We want people to look at the items together and see that as an entire giftable set. So maybe you came in and you saw that new moisture meter for your indoor plants, but also that packaging goes great with the waterproof buckets that we offer with that, and also the gardening tools. And now you’re not just getting that one little impulse item. You’ve now added on 2, 3, 4 more items to that impulse sale and you’re increasing those sales now exponentially. So for us, it’s really about having every brand create a story and selling that story, and that’s just going to continue to increase your retail sales in a small space where capitalizing on different types of revenue is really important.

Nichole Lockett

(11:05):

Yeah, I feel they’re conversational pieces as well in our pharmacies. We really talk to our customers and our patients, so I think that helps a lot with it as well. So I’m so glad to see this huge offering for our members. I’m really loving the catalogs you guys already have out as members. You all will see on the page for DM merchandise, and we’ll have the catalogs loaded. They do have the DM merchandising pricing on them, and your IPC discount is on top of that pricing. So when you log into our page, which you’ll see the IPC QR code here at the bottom of the page, you’ll be able to see that pricing catalog and what your IPC discount is to include a shipping discount, which that’s amazing, having a duplicative discount for our members. You all, like I said, you can see there’s a QR code here. It’ll take you to the page. You’re absolutely welcome to submit the contact form to get more information, or you can reach out to either of us at the contact information here on the page. Nicole, I thank you so much for sitting down and talking with me and really letting our members know what they can expect. I know they are going to love speaking with you and working with you just as much as we do. So really excited for this partnership and thank you again.

Shannon Battle

(12:18):

Thank you so much, Shannon. I’m also really excited and I can’t wait to be a resource to you and to all of the IPC members.

Nichole Lockett

(12:26):

Absolutely. Thank you everyone. Have a great day.

Shannon Battle

(12:29):

Thanks.

Nichole Lockett

(12:34):

Awesome. How did we do? We did good. Okay.