How a rural pharmacy got their product catalogue online instantly with NearSt
Located in Suffolk’s rural countryside, Clare Pharmacy is a family-run independent business with community at its heart. As part of the Alphega Pharmacy group, owner Nicholas Smith prides himself on constantly upholding a local, friendly service. After taking over his family’s business in 2007, Nick has built up a pharmacy dedicated not only to working with the NHS and other healthcare providers but also widening the store’s extensive range of health and beauty items.
The Challenge
‘We hadn’t invested in anything online. We were just a traditional bricks and mortar pharmacy.’ - Nick, Clare Pharmacy
Always mindful of keeping up with the ever-changing retail space, Nick was faced with the overwhelming task of creating a website for over 6700 products. With little time to give to taking photographs of thousands of images and providing descriptions of each item, Nick was faced with the realisation that having his products online would require a lot of time, effort and money.
The Solution
‘When CSY came forward with NearSt, it seemed a simple way of tying in with our till so that people could see what we have available in store with little effort on our part.’ - Nick, Clare Pharmacy
After speaking with his point-of-sale system, CSY, Nick was delighted to find an alternative to the painstaking task of creating a website from scratch. After speaking with the NearSt team, Nick discovered how NearSt uses the barcodes in his system to match them to photographs and descriptions to get his products visible to the thousands searching online.
NearSt then feeds these products to Clare Pharmacy’s very own Google See What’s In Store so that customers can “do their shopping without actually having to visit the shop to see what’s available”.
With NearSt’s easy integration, Nick has been able to experience first-hand how easy it can be to get his products online without taking any time away from running the bricks and mortar space.
“The great benefit is that because it runs through our stock file, it saves us so much time. As you use barcodes we already have, it’s really great.” - Nick, Clare Pharmacy
The Results
“It’s been great for us. It’s been useful to give people the opportunity to see what we have available in the shop. Our regular customers also use NearSt to check that we have a product in stock that they already know they want.” - Nick, Clare Pharmacy
NearSt is currently Clare Pharmacy’s go-to space for customers to browse what is available in-store. In August 2021, Clare Pharmacy’s inventory was spotted online over 1511 times. As well as getting new customers in the area, Nick is delighted that NearSt has been able to help his regular customers by allowing staff to "point people in the right direction" online so that they can actually understand exactly what customers are searching for.
Thanks to NearSt, Clare Pharmacy has been able to get their inventory on the front page of Google with no extra effort from Nick and his team so that they can continue to serve their local community.
If you’d like to see how NearSt could help you connect your products to customers for no extra work, drop us a note on hello@near.st or give us a ring on 0333 050 9658.
