bizme:
This your opportunity to learn from someone who has successfully started a pharmacy business literally from the scratch and has grown it into a multimillion naira business in a matter of months.

If you are interested and serious about your interest, you either drop your questions here or you drop your email address.

fabem:


i have someone who she is a nurse. She have been planning to have a pharmacy shop. Please what is the way out?

xreal:
Can someone who hasn't studied pharmacy in school open a pharmacy store?

bizme:
On a general note in starting a community pharmacy, you will need to attend to the following:

1) Negotiate with a registered pharmacist (beware of fake ones) to become a member of the board of your company: This should not cost you much, in fact it is better to agree to an income sharing formula. Getting a pharmacist on the board is not an optional requirement. And it is to your benefit; he/she is going to save your neck when the regulators come calling. And yes, they certainly will come.

2) Apply to the corporate affairs commission for incorporation: it is essential that you have a unique business name that has not been used by any other person. For this you will apply at the CAC for name verification; takes anything from one to two weeks. This requirement too is obligatory; all pharmacies must be incorporated as company.

3) Get a good location and apply to the department of pharmaceutical services (of the state ministry of health) for site inspection: there are rules guiding the siting of pharmaceutical premises. First, they can not be within 200m of existing pharmaceutical premise. This however does not apply to existing patent medicine stores. A pharmacy can be cited within 200m of patent medicine stores, but patent medicine stores must not be sited within 400m of a pharmacy. Second, the location must not be in a market, not at bus stops, and not within a government hospital. Once you get a good location, before you pay the rent and before you start spending money on shelves and the likes, get the DPS to come for site inspection.

4) Once you get a go ahead, you can pay for the shop, and start shaping up. The floor must be tiled, the walls must be in good condition and ventilation must be provided (AC or multiple fans). Give good attention to the type of shelves you will make. Make shelves for the long term and not based on your present lean pocket. Pharmacies have the potential of growing very rapidly. If you are not careful, in just one year you may need stronger shelves. In less than a year I had to acquire the space next to my premise which I linked up to make it a lot bigger.
Since you have a pharmacist on board of the company, make sure you utilize him fully. Get him to guide you on these other stages. Make sure he advises you with respect to location. I can't emphasize this enough, location is everything. The location determines the kind of drugs that you will stock and the kind of patients you will have patronizing you.

5) You need a superintendent pharmacist to register the premise for you: this will cost you some money, or better still you can offer the pharmacist a good deal. You certainly need him to help you build the business to self-sufficiency. You can put him too on a basic salary and strike a deal with respect to his productivity. If you treat him well, it is well within the powers of a pharmacist to make you N500,000 or more from drugs worth nothing more than N100,000. Don't worry too much about his/her salary, in no time he/she will make you so much more than you are paying him per month. One more thing, make sure your superintendent pharmacist reports to the pharmacist on the board of your company. He will let you know the kind of drugs to stock, plus if you are in good terms he can help you get credit facilities provided exclusively to pharmacists such as the MediLoan of Diamond bank. Fidelity and IBTC have theirs as well.
Lets I forget: make sure you open a corporate account with a bank from the word go (I recommend Diamond bank), especially if you plan to leverage on credit from the banking industry. The loan they offer you often depends on your monthly turn over, to get that number up make sure you transfer money from your private accounts into this corporate account before transferring back to the private account for spending. Most banks require a minimum of 6 months with them before they can offer you credit facilities to expand your pharmaceutical operations.

5) Okay, this goes without saying: get drugs. I recommend you start small and let your pharmacist advise you on what to stock. If you are in plush setting it will make little sense to stock some drugs while others are going to be in high demand...and vice versa.

6) Employ other support staff, put them on basic salary and offer them allowances that depend on their productivity (daily or monthly sales). This will make them work with enthusiasm and treat your customers right. For instance, you could offer a sales girl N6,000 basic salary per month and tell her that any day the daily sales exceed N50,000 she will get N200 for that day. That's additional N6,000 if she is able to meet the daily target every day of the month.

Make sure your staff treat your customers well.

And remember, it is only a business that one starts that grows, not the one that remains in our head in the form of ideas and imaginations.