If your customers can buy HME products at Wal-Mart, a chain drug-store or online, why would they bother coming into an independent home health care (HHC) store and pay a higher price just to buy from you? The answer is really about positioning. Mass market retailers and drugstore chains merchandise over-the-counter (OTC) products that sell themselves. They only sell the fastest moving SKUs within a given category. And these products must be self-explanatory so customers are able to pick them up off the shelf (or find them online) and instantly understand how the product works and its benefits. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view), most HHC products are not OTC products. Home care products and medical supplies are more like boutique items that require specialty retailers to display and sell quality brands; highly trained salespeople to explain and demonstrate these products; increased breadth and depth of inventory to meet customers’ diverse needs and products merchandised out-of-the-box for customers to touch and try, then buy. Chains and online retailers focus on turns and minimum profit margins. Quality is not usually a concern as higher retail price points reduce sales as well as net profits. Educated salespeople are also an unnecessary expense when minimum-wage employees are adequate clerks to work registers. Sales-per-facing, sales-per-square-foot, sales-per-click and one-size-fits-all are the name of the game in mass market sales. Successful HHC sales are the result of selling a package rather than a single product. This package includes medical-grade product(s), customer education, product demonstration, delivery (if necessary), customer service follow-up, 24/7 support, warranty and recall support and repair service. Remember that chains only sell a product at a price. In our HHC marketplace, retailers are in the business of educating people about how HHC products and services will maintain or improve the quality of their daily lives. Our knowledgeable salespeople then offer a recommendation, which is usually what the customer buys. Chains usually sell advertised name brands or their private labels. HHC retailers have learned that selling these same brands is a no-win situation for them. Chains or online retailers sell these name brands for retail price points that are often less than what HHC retailers pay wholesale for the same products. Successful HHC retailers know their competitors and which brands to sell in respective categories. They carefully decide which of these products to carry so as not to compete head-to-head on price. These HME brands are often what we consider medical-grade products—higher quality than mass market brands and often hospital grade. HHC brands also offer a complete product selection within their respective categories, such as a basic model offering one or more upgrades. For example, instead of stocking only one inexpensive/basic brand lift chair in a chain, HHC retailers will display three or more options (good/better/best) with different features, benefits and price points. Today 80 percent of purchasing decisions among baby boomers/family caregivers are made inside a retail store. These customers usually do not know what they are going to buy before they enter. Boomers now represent two-thirds of our retail HHC customers, as the adult children who care for aging parents or loved ones. When a customer enters a chain or mass merchandiser and requests an item, they are directed to a respective aisle number on which to find the product. If the customer can find the product, they will only find one product option and may not know if it’s the best option for their loved one at home. However, when that same customer enters a HHC retailer, they are greeted by a salesperson who asks how they might help. When the customer asks for a specific product, they are walked to the appropriate department, asked a few qualifying questions about the end user and then shown and educated on the core and related products that will help meet the end user’s HHC needs. Superior customer service combined with a complete product selection and medical-grade products can provide a winning formula for keeping independent HHC retailers successful and profitable in today’s competitive marketplace.
