What your Pharmacy Can Learn From The Eclipse

On Monday, all of America will be focusing on seeing a total eclipse of the sun.  This is something that Americans haven’t seen since 1991. As NASA’s website points out:

Anyone within the path of totality can see one of nature’s most awe inspiring sights – a total solar eclipse. This path, where the moon will completely cover the sun and the sun’s tenuous atmosphere – the corona – can be seen, will stretch from Salem, Oregon to Charleston, South Carolina. Observers outside this path will still see a partial solar eclipse where the moon covers part of the sun’s disk. 

All this week leading up to the event, I’ve been seeing reports on the news about how there is a shortage of special eclipse glasses, high traffic expectations in cities that border the line of totality, limited hotel rooms, scarce rental cars, etc. 

Exciting stuff, right?  But what can you learn from this and apply to your pharmacy business?

It wasn’t like this is an unexpected event, right?  Newscasters were talking about the “next eclipse” to occur in 2017 during the last one in 1991.  So why are we running out of special glasses, cars, hotel rooms, etc?  Because many people plan poorly and wait until the last minute.  So take advantage of this, by thinking ahead to what your customers may need as certain future events come up.  Here are some ideas:

• We know cough and cold season is coming – stock Kleenex, Vapor Rub, and other cold remedy items near the counter
• The holidays are coming up quickly – plan accordingly and merchandise impulse items that customer can grab quickly.
• In most of the country, cold weather is also coming.  Stock up accordingly on bad weather items.

Yep, these ideas seem obvious, yet as you can see by Monday’s eclipse, there’s always opportunity knocking somewhere.  

Oh, and one last piece of advice – don’t stare directly at the sun!