In less than four years, the Kôté Santé brand, developed by the company Pharma 974, has become a leader in the Reunion pharmaceutical sector by bringing together 83 pharmacies under its banner. In a booming beauty care and hygiene market, the implementation in pharmacies of cutting-edge commercial techniques based on a pei identity has made Kôté Santé the most innovative brand in Reunion parapharmacy. But Kôté Santé goes further than the search for performance by contributing to the emergence of a range of Reunion products in drugstores.. Dimitry Louvencourt, general director and pilot of this success, specifies the philosophy of action, the positioning and objectives of the brand in this year 2023.
Meeting Leader : What does the Kôté Santé pharmaceutical brand represent in relation to the number of pharmacies in Reunion Island? ?
Dimitry Louvencourt : Kôté Santé brings together 83 member pharmacies out of a total of 242 pharmacies in Reunion Island. We are leaders with a market share of around 35%.. There is a great disparity between the different pharmacies brought together under our brand. We have one of the smallest pharmacies on the island and one of the largest. All have access to the same shared commercial development support services. Services of a level that has nothing to envy of the largest metropolitan brands.
By whom was the brand founded and for what purpose? ?
The Kôté Santé brand was created in 2017 by nine pharmacists with a significant parapharmacy activity.. They wanted to react to the arrival of powerful metropolitan brands in this very competitive market, with the aim of being able to offer their customers a greater offer, and above all different. Create a brand, these are significant marketing and development costs. These nine pharmacists were part of the Socopharm group and, very quickly, they understood the need to open the brand to all pharmacies associated with the group. A partnership was therefore established with the Socopharm group in 2018. Socopharm members were offered the opportunity to benefit from the brand's services with shared costs.. I arrived in 2019 to develop Kôté Santé on a large scale. In less than four years, 83 pharmacies have joined the brand.
How does the brand work? ?
For a pharmacist, the group has the advantage of being able to negotiate purchases under better conditions. The Kôté Santé brand offers effective commercial and communication tools to sell better, as well as a trade plan covering around a hundred new parapharmacy products per year offered at very advantageous commercial conditions. The holder retains his freedom. It may have its own commercial policy on other products. The operation of Kôté Santé is not directive : this is what also explains the success of the brand with Reunion pharmacies.
What sets you apart from other brands? ?
First, our loyalty program with the À mes Kôtés card. It is unique in Reunion. Each purchase earns points which translate into discount vouchers offering discounts of five euros or up to 10% on products. We build customer loyalty by rewarding them with, in addition, a very simple program. With us, one euro equals one point. After a hundred points, you are entitled to a reduction voucher to be used within sixty days in the Kôté Santé pharmacy of your choice on a product eligible for loyalty. The loyalty program also works very well because it allows you to find the same products at the same price throughout our pharmacy network.. However, the Reunion parapharmacy market is characterized by a certain nomadism : customers frequently move from one pharmacy to another. Hence the interest in a loyalty card giving access to advantageous offers and new products offered simultaneously in the 83 pharmacies in the network. Implementation was a technical challenge, but the success is quite dazzling. Today more than 130,000 Reunion Islanders, or one in three households, are members of the Kôté Santé loyalty program. More than 330,000 vouchers have been used in our pharmacy network since the launch of the card. Furthermore, with this program, we can start to exploit very powerful data to best meet the needs of our patients and offer specific and attractive offers.
What commercial services do you provide to Kôté Santé member pharmacists? ?
Kôté Santé pharmacist in Saint-Paul.
Our “service” approach is innovative, not to say disruptive, in our market. Our strategy consisted of defining what types of services to provide to our different audiences. We identified three. The first, these are the pharmacists who are members of Kôté Santé : what to do to simplify their work and help them develop their drugstore sales ? The second target audience was that of laboratories, i.e. pharmacy and parapharmacy suppliers, our partners. The third audience, it's the patient, pharmacy customers. We have imagined a range of services that can meet the expectations of these three audiences.. For pharmacies and laboratories, we have implemented a set of actions to facilitate consumer information and sales. We have developed our own ecosystem based on commercial activities, development of sales areas with, especially, gondola are, of communication with the installation of 90 screens and the publication of a free quarterly magazine distributed in all our pharmacies – 160,000 copies distributed per year ! We are also very present on social networks in order to maintain the link with the community of members of our loyalty program, born from our approach to patient. Another of our assets, these are our prices close to those of mainland France. We are very attentive to this. This strategy was implemented within three and a half years.
Kôté Santé defines itself as “the 100% pei brand” : what does this formula mean ?
It means that we are only based in Reunion and that we work with and for Reunion Islanders.. We are anchored in our territory, and not elsewhere. We have no plans to develop outside of Reunion Island, nor in other DOM, nor in mainland France. We are not present in Mayotte. This formula also means that we favor Reunion service providers to meet our needs..
A special relationship of trust attaches Reunionese families to their pharmacies. Do you consider Kôté Santé as the heir to this close relationship? ?
This is the difference between the pharmacy and other places of sale. Trust is at the heart of the pharmacist’s activity. The pharmacy is first and foremost a public utility pharmacy dedicated to health. We are required, in a drug store, to only offer quality products. Advice is at the heart of the pharmacist’s profession.
Should we talk about a duel between drugstores and mass distribution on the health and beauty market?, natural products and well-being ?
The drugstore product is a product for pleasure. Given the current crisis, l’inflation, the problems everyone faces, we are, In fact, in competition with all pleasure products, not only with hygiene and beauty products sold in large retailers. When you go to the cinema or a restaurant, for us, it is also the consumption of pleasure.
The positive point, is that an IPSOS study shows that hygiene and beauty are among the segments on which people have decided not to save too much in the current context.
The scope of the parapharmacy continues to expand. What does this ray cover today?, what types of products are there? ?
The parapharmacy covers hygiene, care, ranges of pleasure products such as perfumes, cosmetics. It’s also aromatherapy, herbal medicine, dietetics, la micronutrition, slimming products, sports nutrition products, hygiene products, feeding and baby care… On average, between medicines and parapharmacy, 14,000 references can be accessed in a pharmacy.
In the turnover of pharmacies, Isn't the parapharmacy taking over the sale of medicines? ?
Not in Reunion. This is also a difference with the metropolis. In a city, some large pharmacies do 30% parapharmacy and 70% medicines. Here we are in a ratio of 20% for parapharmacy and 80% for medicines. This is an average. Everything also depends on the size of the pharmacy and the sales area allocated to the parapharmacy.. The turnover of Kôté Santé pharmacies varies greatly from one to another. It can range from 500,000 euros for a small pharmacy to 10 million euros for the largest structures.. This means that there is still potential and work to be done to develop the parapharmacy in Reunion.. The local market has been closed for a long time, with few marks, and always the same. The arrival of the cable, satellite and the Internet have given a much broader and more global vision of the existing offer. There is always a great appetite for discovering new brands and trendy products in Reunion. in parallel, cosmetic products distributed in drugstores have become more accessible in terms of price than in other specialized channels. For all these reasons, the parapharmacy still has a bright future ahead of it in Reunion.
A new profession has appeared in pharmacies : commercial animation. Does the Kôté Santé brand use facilitators to explain and promote the products? ?
On this plane, we want to stand out. We do not look very favorably on one-off commercial events at points of sale. We advocate a training policy within our network. The training of Kôté Santé pharmacy teams in parapharmacy products is essential and differentiating for laboratories. We have two sales facilitators in the field, trained by the laboratories with which we are partners. Their role is to support the teams in each of the Kôté Santé pharmacies.. An external facilitator or the intervention of a company specializing in pharmacy animation can be occasionally effective, but it will be specialized in the products of a laboratory. Once gone, what is happening ? If pharmacy staff are not themselves trained, it won't do any good. This is why we try to regulate this practice. We prioritize advice appropriate to the patient’s needs as well as their budget.. Continuous, quality advice promoting the ethics and know-how of the pharmacist and his team. For us, a satisfied customer, it’s a returning customer.
Doesn’t the expansion of the parapharmacy also pose the problem of the limited surface area of the points of sale? ?
Of course, and more and more pharmacies are renovating their premises according to new needs. The new missions, type tests Covid ou vaccinations, have led pharmacies to rethink their space. They set up treatment rooms, places intended for individual reception of patients. This development is increasing. It is also certain that larger sales areas allocated to drugstores are increasing.. However, we are still far from the pharmacies that look like drugstores or supermarkets that we find in the USA and now in mainland France. The Reunion pharmacy remains above all a local business.
With trading techniques that are getting closer and closer to cutting-edge trading, Are parapharmacy products becoming products like any other? ?
The profession of pharmacist is evolving, but parapharmacy products are not just any products ! Parapharmacy products are subject to special traceability, rigorous, they are managed like medicines. They can be stored under certain conditions. They require special monitoring, precise information on their active ingredients, advice on their use. What is true, is that today's pharmacist must adapt to the expectations of their customers and open up to skills that are no longer exclusively medical.. Also the largest pharmacies, from 300 to 400m², employ parapharmacy managers who sometimes come from other worlds. Around fifteen pharmacies have this configuration with us.
Hence also the importance of a brand like ours to provide pharmacies with its product expertise., of their sourcing, his mastery of sales and marketing techniques, and a purchasing policy ensuring them, whatever their size, access to the same choice of products at the same price. We are absolutely committed to this equal treatment : with Kôté Santé, a small pharmacy benefits from the same purchasing tools and conditions as a larger pharmacy.
