Storbie celebrates 3 years of helping community pharmacies hold their own online

For the last three of Storbie’s twelve–year history helping small businesses get set up online, our team has lived and breathed pharmacy. We work closely with pharmacy owners and pharmacists to understand the needs at the coal face. Behind the scenes, we work with some of the biggest suppliers to pharmacy in the world, pharmacy software vendors such as Z Software in Australia and industry support organisations such as the Pharmacy Guild in New Zealand. The industry wide network that we have established allows us to offer a solution that delivers the best digital version of your community pharmacy to local consumers spending more and more of their time online.

So why is Storbie so invested in pharmacy?

In 2016, the Pharmacy Guild of New Zealand responded to the needs of members looking to make decisions about the digital future of their pharmacies. It was always important that a pharmacy owner could have autonomy over their website but how could they benefit from centralised management and automation of the many tiresome tasks involved in running an effective website? How could they utilise the models adopted in the physical world by wholesalers and marketing groups – centralising resources to benefit a collective of independently run businesses?

In addition to this, consumers were and still are increasingly starting their healthcare research online to drive their offline behaviour. The convenience of the physical location of a community focused business is a huge advantage online. 1 in 10 Google searches are health related, that’s a lot of people looking online for information to make decisions about their health. Furthermore, nearly three quarters of all mobile searches include a local keyword. So not only are people looking online for health information, they’re looking for locally relevant information.

Storbie, a locally developed e–commerce website platform was a fit that would help not only modernise the interactions between a pharmacy and its customers, future–proofing the business for years to come, but automate and integrate the things behind the scenes that made sense – like product management, and health and services content production.

With Storbie, it is now achievable for even the busiest pharmacy owner to not only get online to meet consumer needs but sustain it over time.

Before Storbie, for your typical pharmacy, being online in any meaningful kind of way seemed out of reach. The investment of time required to draft useful content to describe the services and health advice a pharmacy offers as well as wrangling product descriptions, pictures and price details was an enormous task for an already busy business owner. So, the next best thing, a basic brochure site or directory listing page that says where a pharmacy is located was the default.

We still see plenty of this style of pharmacy website online. However, is your pharmacy more than its physical premises labelled as a pharmacy? Does it do your business justice to leave a customer to assume that you’re just a place to get their script filled? Are you just like every other pharmacy? We know that’s not the case so why shouldn’t you differentiate online too? The things that make you different offline should be showcased online and Storbie has made it possible to achieve that.

Hundreds of community pharmacies across New Zealand and Australia are now powered by Storbie. Some of these pharmacies are trading online, with many others taking the opportunity to have their products on display to be found when people are searching for specific products online. Pharmacy owners tell us that since being online, they have found that people coming in the door are more informed about the availability of their products and services. Their website has made their business visible to consumers who may not have otherwise known what the pharmacy had to offer.

We are actively involved in the industry trying to help pharmacies stay relevant – not just today, but if our product roadmap packed with pharmacy specific features is anything to go by, over time too. Our solution is miles ahead of what we originally offered back in 2016 and it’s only been 3 years. We have countless features to go that will aid in our mission to make the best digital version of your pharmacy even better.

It’s important to remember that it’s not all about competing to sell online either, it’s as much about helping your business deliver an experience across the places your customers are – which is both on the internet and in store.

In summary

We’re in the business of specialist pharmacy websites. We have been working with pharmacists, pharmaceutical suppliers and industry specialists for over three years to create an incredible website solution for pharmacy retailers. We talk to pharmacists every day and we know you’re super busy. We have designed, automated and integrated pharmacy specific features to make it easier than ever to get started. Your precious time is spent with us personalising your website instead of building it.

With Storbie, you can enjoy a stress–free website development process and fast-track your way to a more discoverable, modern and resilient community pharmacy.