TOTAL consumer spending in community pharmacy has grown by 21.4% since Jul 2019, with the average basket spend now $35.80, new data from Westpac and the Pharmacy Guild of Australia reveals.
The Counting on Community Pharmacies insights report, released today, showed that dispensary spending had remained "stable" throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, while retail and other health services grew by more than 55%.
The data showed that while consumer spending in pharmacies has increased over the course of the pandemic, not every store has benefited, with stores in CBD locations experiencing a spike in sales in Mar 2020, due to panic buying, before revenue crashed as office workers shifted to working from home during the first COVID-19 wave.
Guild National President, Trent Twomey, noted sales were slow to recover for these pharmacies, with the outbreak of the Delta variant in Nov 2021 triggering lockdowns and a decline in customer numbers.
"Pharmacies located in airports, large retail shopping centres and CBDs have really struggled," he said.
"But the volume of sales as an aggregate hasn't disappeared - it's shifted towards local neighbourhood community pharmacies."
Westpac Healthcare and Professional Services National Head, Kazaad Mehta, said that some pharmacies were quick to adapt to the pandemic conditions.
"Some of our customers located in areas like CBDs shifted to home delivery of medicines to help supplement revenue impacted by lockdowns and reduction of foot traffic," Mehta said.
The report found that the average spend per basket on non-dispensary items grew from $15.20 in Feb 2020 to $23.60 in Feb 2022, while dispensary spending increased by $0.60 in the same period.
"Early panic buying saw a huge spike in demand for products like hand sanitiser," Twomey said.
"People were also more likely to use their community pharmacy to buy items they may normally have picked up elsewhere."
In contrast to general retail businesses, the report found that pharmacies have seen a 38.4% decline in online spending since Jul 2019, while in-store sales have jumped by 63% in the same period.
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