5 tips to increase your Halloween pharmacy sales

5 tips to increase your Halloween pharmacy sales. When it comes to benefitting from seasonal Halloween sales, pharmacies might not be the most obvious sector.

Despite this not being a gift-giving kind of holiday, almost every business can take advantage of all kinds of consumer holidays with a little thought, and Halloween is no exception, even if you happen to have a pharmacy!

Like any other holiday or event, Halloween can be a fun platform to create promotions, entice customers, and drive your sales.

If you are struggling with ideas when it comes to promoting your pharmacy this Halloween, help is at hand!

Check out our 5 top tips for increasing your pharmacy sales this Halloween.

1. Think Halloween Themes

Whether you decide to go all out or prefer something a little more subtle, be sure to add a Halloween theme to your store a couple of weeks in advance of October 31^st.

You might like to dress up your windows with Halloween props or professional window art, create a spooky apothecary display stand, or add pumpkins, spider webs, and other paraphernalia to your store.

Chat with your suppliers to see if they are running any promotions, or issuing any Halloween merchandise that you can use for displays in your store.

Your staff might like to add some Halloween themes to their usual work attire, such as earrings, pin badges or hats… or full costume if they are really in the Halloween spirit!

However you decide to dress up your business, a little decoration serves as an important visual to create a little interest and remind your customers of the upcoming holiday.

2. Halloween promotions

Any event can create a promotion drive, and pharmacies can create interest around Halloween by utilising existing product ranges.

Within your skincare and beauty displays, add themed products such as Halloween make-up and face paints, bright temporary hair colours, and stick-on nail art.

Consider adding seasonal items like spooky candles, lights, or torches for trick-or-treaters to your gift range.

If you don’t want to bring in specific Halloween products, you can still create a Halloween themed stand or display area to promote season savings, bundles, or reduced products.

Some imaginative re-labelling or signage can be a cost-effective and fun way to do this – after all, who doesn’t want to buy potions instead of lotions?!

Promote your regular items that might be relevant around this time, like masks, make-up remover, sugar-free and diabetic sweets & chocolate, cold and flu remedies, or children’s pharmacy products.

If you prefer to keep it simple, add some giveaway sweets, treats, or stickers for kids to your counter area to mark the event and create interest.

3. Halloween events

Consider planning your own Halloween-themed event at your pharmacy this year, adding some giveaways or prizes for the best costume, pumpkin, drawing, or poem, for example.

If you prefer not to do this in-store, you could get involved with an event that’s already happening in your area; getting to know your local community while promoting your brand.

Whatever you decide on, don’t forget to get pictures for your social media pages to get your community involved with your store.

4. Social Media Posts

Halloween can be a useful marketing tool for your business, and you can talk about it on your social media posts to engage with your customers.

Try some of these ideas for your Halloween social media posts:

• Post a ‘Countdown to Halloween’
• Offer some Halloween safety tips and advice
• Post some Halloween puns and memes
• Create some themed graphics to add to your posts
• (there are loads of free apps to help you with this, e.g. Canva or BeFunky)
• Run a competition or giveaway – it doesn’t even have to be Halloween related!
• Fancy dress photos – post your own or ask your customers to post theirs
• Carve a spooky pumpkin and get the kids to name it
• Post some healthy Halloween recipes

5. Educate your community

Use the Halloween theme to talk about good health practices that are relevant to the celebration.

Aside from all things spooky, Halloween can generally be associated with trick or treating, eating too much sugar, socialising, and organising parties.

You can use this as an opportunity to communicate with your customers on ways to take care of their health during this time, for example:

• Offer practical advice on reducing sugar intake with healthy alternatives.
• Talk about good dental health and hygiene.
• Promote good hand washing techniques.
• Remind customers of the importance of mask-wearing during social occasions.
• Create awareness that costume masks are not a suitable replacement for proper face masks.

You might decide to promote these ideas in person, or on your social media pages. You could even create leaflets or posters to encourage these healthy practices, and the associated products such as masks, handwash, sanitiser, tissues, vitamins, and oral care items.

Retail Solutions is an EPOS provider for pharmacies. We are dedicated to providing your pharmacy with the most up to date and reliable point of sale hardware, along with software management tools to help you manage and control your business effectively.