Competitive strategies for independent pharmacies located in the capricorn district of Limpopo province.

Abstract

The change in legislation that took place in South Africa in 2003 allowed any person including legal entities to own retail pharmacies resulting in the introduction of corporate-owned retail pharmacies and supermarkets with in-store pharmacies. The purpose of the study was to determine strategies instigated by independent pharmacies located in the Capricorn District of Limpopo Province to remain competitive against corporate-owned pharmacies. The nonprobability purposive sampling technique was used to select 15 independent pharmacies to participate in the study. The study population included the pharmacy owner or responsible pharmacist. The participants signed a consent form before the interviews commenced. The 15 study participants were interviewed face-to-face, individually not as part of a group using a semi-structured data collection tool. The collected data was analysed using hand coding by developing themes and sub-themes from the participants responses. The average age of the participants was 41.4 years (range from 28 to 68 years). The average number of years that the pharmacy was in existence was 14.2 years (range from 01 to 43 years). The majority (80%) were males, (73%) of the independent pharmacies were located within one kilometre from another independent pharmacy and nearly half (47%) were located both less than one kilometre and more than 10 kilometres from a corporate-owned pharmacy. With regard to the competitive strategies used, the study results revealed that majority of the participants used a combination of strategies. Four themes were identified namely, pricing, personalised service, marketing and front shop strategy. Themes that were identified as part of external factors that affected future sustainability of their business included government price regulations, medical schemes network status, clients working hours and cost of dispensing program. The following themes were identified as part of internal factors that affected future sustainability of their business: quality of service rendered to clients, location of the business and staff knowledge of front shop items. The main recommendation of the study is for the independent pharmacy owners to consider the cost of products however shift from being focused on products to client-centricity through implementation of strategies that encourage operating in uncontested markets with limited or no competition with corporate-owned pharmacie