True and to sort out the costs of certain drugs. For example if I purchase Claratyne anti histamines it is almost always cheaper to buy from Chemist Warehouse then anywhere else even the generic brands are more expensive per tablet then what you can get from Chemist Warehouse. Not every product is cheaper at Chemist Warehouse but some are significantly so and you can’t usually find the same price anywhere else unless it’s on eBay. If I was Woolworths I would be discussing arrangements with them.
1 Like
they opened a priceline at my local shopping centre and i know quite a few people who went in looking for medications and all they could get was cosmetics.
they need to spin the fragrance and cosmetics only stores off to a new store name and keep the parmacies under the Priceline name
3 Likes
In Australia pharmacies need to be owned by a pharmacist. For Woolworths to own a chemist, their millions of shareholders would need to go to university and get a pharmacy degree.
In most nations, including the UK and USA, anyone can own a pharmacy, as long as they employ a pharmacist to hand over prescription medication.
If the government tried to change this…can you imagine…every pharmacist that hands over a prescription asking the customer to sign the petition against the government’s plan for a chemist in every Coles, and their local chemist closing down. Pharmacists are are very powerful vested interest. As powerful as the registered clubs in NSW.
2 Likes
Nothing is stopping Woolworths having a franchise arrangement and each pharmacy just leases space from Woolworths. They already do that for their sushi sections. The rule is outdated and it is not good for consumers and it should change.
2 Likes
Like most health-related professionals, pharmacists rate pretty highly in these surveys of Australia’s most trusted professions. So it’d be a very brave government to allow Coles or Woolworths to operate chemists as a branch of their supermarkets.
And to be quite honest, I think I’m on the side of the Pharmacy Guild of Australia here. The big two supermarket chains already have way too much power/market share as it is.
3 Likes
True but there needs to be more competition in the space.
1 Like
In return for this “protection” chemists stock every prescription medicine. So every chemist has every medicine.
In nations with a deregulated chemist industry if you ask a supermarket (such as Wal Mart) for a little known medication, they will not stock it and then you start calling around.
Don’t forget that older Australians rely on chemists for medication more than younger Australians. Deregulate the chemists and many of the smaller chemists will disappear and the local supermarket is a long way away. Many seniors do not drive. The chemist network is inefficient and does not achieve economies of scale (that could lower prices) but it does have other advantages - such as better stocking of medication and a larger network of suppliers throughout the suburbs.
1 Like
Indeed, Coles and Woolworths already tried very hard to lobby the federal government on this to no effect through the Late 90s and Early 2000’s, in-fact Woolworths even opened a couple of concept stores within the boundaries of the law around this time. Woolworths has pharmacies in select Countdown stores in NZ, and it appears they too are circumventing similar rules in NZ relating to maximum number of outlets owned by one person by the fact that they have 7 different companies, identically named operating these pharmacies.
Unfortunately since then it’s been proven by certain operators (Chemist Warehouse) that it’s easy enough to circumvent these restrictions, though probably still in the too hard basket for the duopoly considering the economy of scale involved.
3 Likes
Chemist Warehouse is just a franchise and the unfair part is that as no one can own more than five chemists, each chemist is limited to five CW stores.
This is different to other franchises where you can own as many as you want - KFC, IGA etc.
I am a little obsessed with chemists. I studied their regulation at university in the 90s. Since then, very little has changed.
Liquor laws are more lax now. For example, being able to open small wine bars in competition to the pubs. Or pubs getting pokies, in competition with clubs. The regulation in regard to chemists is largely unchanged since the 1970s. The three basic restrictions are:
- They must be owned by a pharmacist
- No more than five chemists can be owned by one pharmacist
- You cannot open up a new chemist within 3kms of an existing chemist (this has been the law since 1974 - thus some chemists are closer. You can, however, buy a chemist and move it)
Want to see crazy? Here are the rules for where you can open a new chemist.
Of course, no such rules exist for most other businesses - gyms, restaurants, dentists, hairdressers. In NSW, only brothels have similar rules regarding their location.
I have never thought of brothels as a retail store but I suppose they are.
5 Likes
Huh? I’ve been in situations before where PBS medicines have had to be ordered in from a central distributor.
I can somewhat understand why there are protections over chemists and locations - they need to be sustainable enough that they can operate with PBS subsidy. And for people who regularly visit chemists for refills, that kind of relationship is quite important. If you’re a concession card holder, it doesn’t really matter which pharmacy you go to, either - all your medicines are going to probably be capped at a maximum of $6.60.
My local chemist (it was originally a Discount Drug Store) was actually taken over by Chemist Warehouse, purely so they could get their hands on the pharmacy register entry.
I think Woolworths and Coles could get into the pharmacy business by doing the same thing (franchising to pharmacists) but it’s probably too risky an investment.
3 Likes
Coles tried in 2006 when the then Coles Myer purchased Pharmacy Direct at Silverwater in suburban Sydney, but it was sold in 2009 at a loss after a court case determined they had breached pharmacy ownership rules. It was not a very inviting store, with a Bunnings type feel to it, and it was crowded the couple of times I went there.
4 Likes
“you pay less…at Priceline!” (1989 commercial)
Youtube: mubd1234’s Aussie Media Archive
1 Like
i agree. this is a big bugbear of mine. having lived in Canada where my local supermarket had a lock up pharmacy section that closed when a pharmacist was not on duty it was so much more convienient to the end user.
i doubt they are profitable without pharmacists working long hours - you speak to people who work in the industry and they will tell you its a glorified retail job - the pay is not great anymore, especially for someone with a degree.
they also stock a ton of crap - my local one has Himalayan rock salt lamps and other natural medicine crap which is right at the entrance. they need to piss this crap off
2 Likes
I recall in the early 00s that Woolworths was going to put Pharmacy into Bigw.
However they went with optometrist instead. Now dead.
Priceline stores probably are where they can’t purchase a new license within the area? I know Priceline in Roselands many years ago was only beauty and then when the independent closed, they moved into their premises and it became a Priceline Pharmacy.
3 Likes
Unless you can compete with ChemistWarehouse prices, sadly it wouldn’t have become competitive except for convenience.
1 Like
Australia’s retail environment has developed where the supermarkets became property developers themselves, building shopping centres around their existing standalone stores.
They became landlords over independent pharmacies, cafes, jewellers, etc. hence they never actually needed to open up their own owned and operated specialty stores.
It probably explains a lot behind why we don’t have cafes, pharmacies or optometrists inside their supermarkets or department stores, unlike the USA where almost everything is big-box standalone.
2 Likes
Although pharmacies in the USA, UK and Canada may be quite deregulated, I remember several European countries were also tightly regulated, France for example:
France is one of the countries in the WHO European Region with the strictest level of pharmacy regulation. Pharmacies can only be owned by pharmacists , and licenses to operate a new community pharmacy are granted only if they meet criteria related to geographic distribution of existing pharmacies and the number of inhabitants they serve.
2 Likes
Chemist Warehouse is great value. I have never found Priceline to be cheap.
1 Like
So u don’t pay less at Priceline?
2 Likes