A discount store without a dispensing pharmacy enters insurance dispensing (2021)

How to lay a second pillar on top of the core strength

The character of this decision lies in connecting the company’s single greatest strength to a different kind of demand — without breaking the existing model. From its founding, Cosmos built its footfall on low-cost merchandising centred on food, and deliberately did not hold the insurance-dispensing business that requires pharmacists on staff. When it did move into dispensing, it was not to remake its format but to add a new use — the prescription — to the flow of customers it had already gathered. In the timing — unhurried, waiting to enter until the reimbursement system had been pared thin — one senses a discipline characteristic of this company.

That said, dispensing carries the heavy fixed cost of pharmacists’ wages, and could rub against the constitution of a company that has spent its life paring SG&A to the bone. How far the vision of handling dispensing at every store can coexist with low-cost management, and how far the “area-wide” separation of prescribing and dispensing (面分業) will spread, are not yet clear. As of this writing, co-located dispensing counters number just 53 stores, weighted toward the Kanto region. How thinly to lay a second pillar on top of the company’s own strength — the success or failure of this decision will be answered by the future reach and profitability of that co-located network.