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From Notebooks to Inhalers – PrimeRx MARKET Can Help Make Your Pharmacy a Back-to-School Destination
Introduction
Back-to-school shopping is a rite of passage for millions of American families, with total spending on school preparations expected to exceed $128 billion during 2025. Many of the products that will fill students’ backpacks can be found on the pharmacy shelves, making pharmacies uniquely positioned for one-stop shopping. By taking advantage of PrimeRx MARKET online purchasing capabilities, and functionality offered through the PrimeRx pharmacy management system, pharmacies can establish themselves as back-to-school destinations.
According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), families with children in grades K-12 will spend an average $858 on back-to-school supplies. Of that amount, roughly $143 will be spent on school supplies, amounting to an overall total of $6.6 billion. Other projections include $295 spent on electronics ($13.6 billion total), $249 on clothing and accessories ($11.4 billion), and $169 spent on shoes ($7.8 billion).
Those figures though, are dwarfed by the amounts that will be spent among the nation’s college students. The NRF projects college students will spend an average $1,325 on supplies, for a total of nearly $87 billion. The typical student will spend $118 on personal care items ($7.9 billion total), $140 on food ($9.4 billion), $310 on electronics ($20.7 billion), $192 for dorm furnishings ($12.8 billion), and $166 on clothing ($11 billion).
But back-to-school shopping invariably includes time spent in the local pharmacy, restocking OTC products, refilling prescriptions, and obtaining required immunizations. But the pharmacy can also be a convenient source for many items on their school supply shopping lists. Pharmacies can promote their viability as a shopping destination by stocking their shelves and promoting availability of essential products that include:
Stocking Your Pharmacy for Back-to-School Season
- Backpack Essentials: Products including hand sanitizer, tissues, disinfecting wipes, water bottles, healthy snack bars, sunscreen, and insect repellant.
- First Aid Supplies: Family first aid kits should be restocked and ready to handle the inevitable scrapes and stings that come with new school adventures. Key products should include adhesive bandages (Band-Aids), gauze pads, medical tape, ace bandages, antiseptic wipes, antibiotic ointment, gloves, hot and cold packs, sunscreen and sunburn relief spray, insect repellant, hydrocortisone cream, pain relief medications and antihistamines.
- OTC Medications and supplies: Must have OTC products include children’s ibuprofen and acetaminophen, cough and cold medications, throat lozenges, multivitamins (especially children’s formulations), allergy medications and antihistamines, lice treatment, saline nasal spray, Imodium, and thermometers.
- Personal Care Products: College-bound students in particular will appreciate access to a broad range of products including shampoo/conditioner, toothpaste/toothbrushes/dental floss, facial cleansers, soaps, deodorant, razors, shaving gels, moisturizers, eye drops, lip balms, brushes/combs/hairdryers, and feminine hygiene products.
- School Supply Checklist: Products including notebooks, binders, pens, pencils, crayons, markers, rulers, folders, glue sticks, erasers, index cards, post-it notes, lined paper, construction paper, pencil cases, children’s scissors, lunch boxes, locks, and refillable water bottles.
- Food and Beverages: Water bottles, energy drinks, multi-packs of different types of cookies, crackers, snack foods, granola bars and protein bars, applesauce and fruit cups, fruit snacks, and student-favorite packaged foods including mac&cheese, canned soups and pastas. Pharmacies with refrigerator cases should stock up on school favorites including yogurt, individually packaged cheeses, and lunch kits (i.e., Lunchables from Oscar-Mayer, Uncrustables from Smucker’s).
- Prescription Medications. Pharmacists should also make sure they are fully stocked with top medications prescribed to children and young adults. A listing of commonly prescribed medications, as developed by VeryWell Health includes:
- Antibiotics including Amoxicillin, Augmentin, Zithromax, Bactrim, Ciprodex (antibiotic/steroid).
- Topical antibiotics including Bactroban (mupirocin).
- Allergy medications including Epipen and Epipen Jr. Auto-Injectors, Nasonex nasal spray, Elocon cream and ointment.
- Cough and cold medications including prescription-strength formulations of products including Sudafed and Robitussin.
- ADHD medications including Adderall, Ritalin, and Vyvanse.
- Asthma treatments including Albuterol, Singulair, Advair, and Asmanex Twisthaler.
- Steroid medications including Fluticasone, Prednisone, Triamcinolone acetonide cream and ointment, Nasacort AQ nasal spray, Budesonide, and Hydrocortisone.
- Prescription-strength formulations of Ibuprofen products including Motrin and Advil.
- Prescription-strength formulations of pain relievers including Tylenol #3.
- Anti-nausea medications including Zofran and Phenergan.
- Multivitamins with fluoride.
For many of these medications, pharmacies will need to maintain inventories in multiple varieties – syrups, tablets, gummies, suppositories – to accommodate the preferences and physical limitations of each patient.
- Immunizations. Pharmacies have an important role in helping parents ensure their children are up to date on all required immunizations. While vaccine requirements vary by state, mandated immunizations often include:
- Flu.
- COVID-19.
- Measles, mumps and rubella (MMR).
- Diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (DTaP).
- Polio (IPV).
- Varicella (chickenpox).
- Human papillomavirus (HPV).
- Meningococcal conjugate (MdnACWY).
PrimeRx MARKET for Back to School Season
Clearly, back-to-school shopping is big business, and savvy pharmacies can tap into the surge in spending to improve their bottom lines. Pharmacies can rely on PrimeRx MARKET and the PrimeRx technology system for seamless management of functions including inventory/procurement, communications, refills, immunization reporting and patient records management, among other capabilities. Following is a brief overview of some especially relevant capabilities.
- PrimeRx MARKET. Inventory procurement and pricing efficiency become a whole lot easier when pharmacists take advantage of PrimeRx MARKET. The online platform provides direct access to more than 40 of the nation’s leading prescription drug and OTC product suppliers. PrimeRx MARKET identifies suppliers that have required products in stock and generates real-time pricing comparisons. This allows pharmacists to have real-time insight into product availability and pricing, and eliminates the tedious, time-consuming process of having to manually lookup each product.
Once a pharmacist evaluates available options, orders can be placed directly within the PrimeRx MARKET platform. The system accommodates orders placed from multiple suppliers, with all records seamlessly stored and managed.
PrimeRx MARKET offers real-time insight into inventory pricing and availability, and a streamlined ordering process. This user-friendly solution makes it easy for pharmacists to manage their inventories, and to ensure that shelves are properly stocked to accommodate back-to-school product demand.
- OTC Product Promotion. PrimeRx helps pharmacies spread the word about their back-to-school wares through direct integration with the Pointy solution, offered by Google. Pointy helps drive local traffic by listing a pharmacy as a retail option for products queried in local Google searches.
A search for “washable markers,” for example, would list a nearby pharmacy that stocks that particular product, possibly resulting in a visit from a new customer who may not have thought of the pharmacy as an option for markers. And once in the store, that consumer may be open to perusing other back-to-school related items.
- Patient Communication. Good communication is essential as pharmacists build relationships with their patients. But communication channels also help pharmacists promote OTC and consumer goods products, and remind parents to fill medications and ensure vaccines are updated. PrimeRx offers extensive functionality that allows pharmacists to easily stay in touch with their patients. Key capabilities include:
- Customized outbound messages. Messages can be generated on a wide range of topics including:
- Prescription refill and “Ready for pickup” reminders.
- “Gentle” reminders when a medication remains in the bin after a pre-determined period of time.
- Notification that a prescription has been received.
- Updates when a medication is pending prior authorization.
- Group Messages. Pharmacies can identify groups of patients for targeted messaging. Parents of school age children, for example, can receive reminders about state-mandated vaccines available at the pharmacy, or reminders to stock up on cold medicines as the winter months approach.
- Inbound messages. Patients can respond to texts and emails.
- Refills/Renewal Management. PrimeRx automates refill and dispensing workflows such that most of the processes are seamlessly managed. Processes that used to require several minutes of focused staff attention can now be accomplished in seconds, often with minimal human involvement. A few key capabilities include:
- Automated Refills. The system automatically identifies medications ready for refill and generates an automated email/text to the patient (or parent/guardian) seeking approval.
- Automated Renewals. PrimeRx generates an alert to the pharmacist if no refills are remaining on a prescription. Following direction from the pharmacist, the system automatically generates a fax or email to the prescriber requesting a new prescription. Upon approval by the prescriber, the new prescription moves directly into the refill queue. Once in the queue, labels are generated, and each prescription is prepared for filling.
- Loyalty Programs. Research by the National Retail Federation found consumers are especially mindful of costs this year and as a result, “have turned to early shopping, discount stores and summer sales for savings on school essentials.” Pharmacies can show support for their customers’ bottom lines with an effective loyalty program that offers rewards and savings incentives. PrimeRx allows pharmacies to create and maintain loyalty programs directly within the operating system. A pharmacy can customize a program to meet customer preferences and easily manage the program to adjust pricing.
- Automated Immunization Reporting. As important as it certainly is for students (and their parents/guardians!) to stay current with immunization requirements, so too is the need for pharmacists to meet all immunization compliance mandates. This generally requires transmitting vaccine records to each state’s immunization registry.
PrimeRx automates this process through direct integration with the Immunization Registry Reporting solution from Surescripts. The solution automatically transmits accurate, timely information to applicable state and local reporting registries. No need for pharmacy staff to spend time gathering data and filling out tedious paperwork, everything happens automatically within PrimeRx.
A recent article in The New York Times referred to back-to-school shopping as “an often-resented task,” and noted that buying the items on their children’s supply lists has become a top source of complaints on social media and other parent forums. “I hate it more than matching socks,” one mom reportedly wrote on a parenting website.
Fortunately though, options are available to help. This includes the option to purchase many products at a local pharmacy. One-stop shopping right in their own community! Demand is certainly there, and with important tools like PrimeRx MARKET and the PrimeRx management system, pharmacists can step in and meet this growing need.
