Case Study | Life Pharmacy Barrington

Life Pharmacy Barrington - Winning With Digital

When Kerryn walks through the door every morning, she falls in love with her store all over again. 

That care and passion are evident in the successes of her pharmacy. Beginning with a focus on creating great experiences for her customers and staff, everything else follows naturally. By using the concept of surprise and delight, co-owners Kerryn and Chris have been able to create a warm and welcoming atmosphere both instore and online. The result - an increase in customers and employee retention.

However, Life Pharmacy Barrington hasn’t always had a web experience with all the bells and whistles. Their first website was a one-pager for information. It served its purpose at the time, but when Kerryn and Chris engaged Storbie they were able to take full advantage of the various opportunities and efficiencies.

We sat down with Kerryn to share her website journey with Storbie and how it helped them achieve their Green Cross Pharmacy of the Year Award. 

Connect Your Physical and Digital Store

Before their Storbie website, Life Barrington was limited to the foot traffic and open times of their store. It put them at a disadvantage, but Kerryn has always had a strong opinion about the opportunities that digital presents.

Because Kerryn is so engaged with her website, her pharmacy was able to quickly reap the benefits of having both a physical and digital store. It helps that Kerryn does not view the two as separate, rather, that they are just different avenues allowing Life Barrington to better serve the Christchurch community. Similarly to how she will walk around the store, Kerryn sets aside time every week to ‘dust the digital shelves.’

After the migration to Storbie and the new ecommerce functionality, Life Barrington were able to serve customers whether they were in Christchurch or Auckland. While that opened them to a world of opportunities, there were initial teething issues with stock and price management. As stock or prices changed in their physical store, at times that wasn’t reflected on their digital store. 

The troubles of misaligned stock management might have deterred other store owners, but because of Kerryn’s tenacity and her awareness of Storbie’s integrations, she was able to find a solution with Toniq. The point-of-sale (POS) integration evaporated her challenges. 

Now every order made, whether online or in store, was in stock and correctly priced because of the integration. 

And Kerryn continued to find new ways to make her business better and her life easier thanks to the range of Storbie website integrations. The Go Sweet Spot integration made online order fulfillment simple by having orders picked up twice a day, parcel tracking, and more features available at her fingertips. 

As a result, Kerryn was able to make her life easier and also deliver that high quality customer experience she believes in. Life Barrington is now able to offer a 24 hour turnaround time for online orders. 

Main takeaway: Work smarter, not harder. Take advantage of the range of Storbie integrations and features to make your life easier and your business more efficient.

Don’t Be Afraid To Give It A Go

Sometimes all you need to do is make the first step. By simply giving it a go, Kerryn has been able to achieve a lot for her business. From completing courses to encouraging her staff to also engage with the tools, their efforts have led to award-winning success. 

Once the Life Barrington website was successfully migrated to Storbie and integrations were making life simpler, Kerryn began working through a search engine optimisation (SEO) series with Storbie. They now outrank competitors on Google Search for a number of products. Where previously they had been limited to foot traffic, their pharmacy is now receiving online orders from all around the country! Around 90% of their online orders are from cities outside of the Canterbury region. 

This success isn’t the work of just one person, however. Like most things, it takes time to nurture your website and your staff. It requires patience, dedication, and a willingness to continually learn. Kerryn works hard to have her staff engage with the digital tools they use.

Training your team and getting them to adopt the use of digital tools can be difficult at times, but the benefits are significant. For something like digital to be a successful part of your business, it’s vital to have your team using the right tools and moving forward toward the same goal. 

Main takeaway: Don’t be afraid to dip your toes in and give something a go. When the direction you want to take becomes clear, bring your staff along for the journey by encouraging and supporting them with the right tools for the job.

Embrace The Wins

For Kerryn, Chris, and the team, winning the Green Cross Pharmacy of the Year Award is one of many successes her pharmacy has achieved. They now have their own dedicated Storbie computer and printer, a very successful website, and they are excited for the future of their business and the opportunities to come. 

Life Barrington began its digital journey with a simple website and with dedication and the right tools they have built a successful ecommerce website with a passionate team.