Page 57 - RPA Magazine December 2020

BTy NostraData Director Mike da Gama and Business Manager Nick Biggs. umultuous. Unprecedented. Stressful. Unpredictable. These are just some of the words that we’ve heard describe the year that was. No matter how you define it, the numbers agree. Though demand peaks and troughs have been extreme, the volume of prescription sales through community pharmacy has returned to relatively good growth, rising 4.2 per cent between October 2019 and September 2020 compared with the previous 12 months (October 2018 to September 2019). For the remainder of the report, we’ll refer to this as the reporting period. A concerning downward trend in consumer sales has continued from the last reporting period (June 2020). While temporarily buoyed by spikes in sales of hand sanitiser and other personal hygiene products, this reporting period has seen a decline in retail value of 3.1 per cent. One wonders if this is due to pharmacy being a victim of its own good intentions, supporting the fight against Covid and encouraging phone order and delivery of medicines, thereby reducing the in-store visits and ensuing consumer sales. Did this result in grocery absorbing these purchases? If pharmacies had better- integrated click and delivery platforms (script and OTC) they may have mitigated this decline. In the top categories, the differences show that these product groups have faced more pressure than the market overall: ANNUAL REPORT 55 million. We expect these categories will start to decline unless Australia experiences additional peaks in Covid- related illness. The biggest category, cough cold and other respiratory products, initially appears to have only slipped by 2.6 per cent, but this is deceptive as, while Asmol and Ventolin have risen strongly (up by $16 million), this has been all but cancelled out by the much greater fall in cold remedies, with the top three Codral medicines falling a collective $12 million. More cold and flu and allergy remedies have driven this category into negative territory. Reduced transmission of traditional winter illnesses such as flu, due to social distancing, improved hygiene standards, higher vaccination rates and reduced willingness to spend because of increased economic uncertainty, also drove declines in most categories.1 Vitamins and supplements have seen a further decline in 2020, slipping 8.6 per cent in the year-to-date sales value compared with the same time last year. Iron (e.g., Maltofer and Ferrovance) and vitamin D supplements (e.g., Ostelin) showed strong growth, while pregnancy and breastfeeding related supplements declined. Declines may be caused by lower discretionary spending, a fall in daigou (Chinese personal shoppers) and direct exports. The ABC reported recently that “Australia’s multi-billion dollar daigou industry has been upended by the pandemic, with the effects being felt not just by thousands of personal shoppers but by major Australian businesses as well,” (Xiao, 2020). TO PAGE 56 Prescription sales top 10 categories 2019 $12.1 billion 2020 $12.6 billion +3.7% Consumer sales top 15 categories 2019 $6.1 billion 2020 $5.8 billion -4.9% 2019: Oct 2018 to Sep 2019; 2020: Oct 2019 to Sep 2020. Consumer health: hand sanitiser and no-touch thermometers the winners, thanks to Covid It’s common knowledge that the key drivers of the consumer health market in 2020 were sanitising products, masks and temperature recording equipment. For Victorians, the mask sales have been more pronounced than in other states, due to the mandatory requirements. However, the remaining products appear to be distributed relatively evenly across the nation. Class-by-class consumer health category highlights Since the peak in sales in March 2020, sales have slumped in 11 of the top 15 categories, with notable exceptions being personal hygiene (including hand sanitisers) which is up 30.6 per cent or $57 million, and tests and measuring Instruments (including digital thermometers), up 17.3 per cent or $23 Hand sanitiser unit sales are declining to normal levels - time to reduce stock levels! 1,000 900 800 700 600 500 400 300 200 100 0 2020 sales have exceeded all previous records, but are now trending down 2020 2019 2018 Figure 1. Reducing stock levels of hand sanitiser may be prudent, given the strong downward trend in demand RETAIL PHARMACY ASSISTANTS • DEC 2020 Unit Sales - Thousands January February March April May June July August September October November December