OPTIMISING OPPORTUNITIES Multipharma is a market-leading retailer of pharmaceuticals and cosmetic products. Philip Yorke talked to Marc Hendrickx about the company’s plans to develop its own-label products and non-pharma sales, as well as to increase the number of its retail outlets.
M
ultipharma is a retail cooperative that was founded in a small town near Brussels, Belgium, more than 90 years ago. It began with just one ‘Apotheke’ (Pharmacy) and has grown steadily over the years to become Belgium’s premier retail pharmaceutical supplier. Today the company operates 248 outlets across Belgium and is by far the largest retailer of its kind in the country. Multipharma employs over 1400 people and prides itself on its high quality of personal service and in-store presentation, as well as its ability to ensure that retail stocks are consistently replenished through its state-of-the-art warehouse facilities and logistics operations throughout the country.
Growth in own-label product sales Continuing legislation concerning both operational and pricing policies, plus constraints on advertising by the Bel-
gian government, has led Multipharma to explore more innovative ways to maintain its profit margins. Mr Hendrickx said, “It is a very competitive marketplace and the strict government controls on the pricing structures of pharmaceutical products have had a negative effect on our profit margins whilst our overheads continue to climb. “To combat this trend we decided a couple of years ago to trial the launch of a few products under our own brand name, and this was made possible due to our large number of outlets. The projected sales figures based upon our extensive range of outlets across the country made this decision economically viable. This move proved to be a big success with our customers as it offered them quality products backed by a name they could trust and in addition, more competitive prices. The high volumes we were produc-
ing in these lines made it more profitable for us, as we could control our margins for the very first time on our pharmaceutical over-the-counter (OTC) non-prescription, self-medication products. “In another strategic move, we decided to rearrange our stores to enable us to better display our non-pharma products and in particular our cosmetic and nutritional products which offer better margins for us as high street retailers. In keeping with most other EU countries, prices are continuing to go down, and in our case more than 2,200 products were reduced in price over the last two years. We are therefore facing a bleak time over the next four years or so with decreasing revenues in the pharmaceutical sector, whilst our overheads, and in particular, our staff costs continue to rise. We therefore have to do more with less. Currently we are producIndustry Europe 177
