Chemist Warehouse problem Australians are ignoring trends now
Barely a town or city in Australia is immune from Chemist Warehouse's distinctive bright yellow shopfronts and now the bargain pharmacy brand is spreading internationally to New Zealand.
The brand's meteoric rise Down Under is set to be repeated in New Zealand after the pharmacy giant recently spread across the Tasman - with 35 stores opening over the past few years, and independent chemists vanishing as quickly as they did in Australia. It has also opened six stores in Ireland.
The Pharmacy Guild of NZ said 30 independent chemists went out of business in 2022, replaced by larger chain stores.
In January this year, Seema Rambisheswar had to shut down her Life Pharmacy store at Glenfield in Auckland's north after working there for 22 years and owning it for 14.
A Chemist Warehouse opened in the same mall in 2020, cutting costs for Kiwis by waiving the government's $5 contribution fee, charged with each prescription, by absorbing it at a loss.
'Is this? Australia's Cheapest Chemist': The cleverly worded slogan features on many Chemist Warehouse stores
The pharmacy giant has spread across Australia but independent chemists have questioned if they provide the same personal care and service as a community-owned store
'The impact (of Chemist Warehouse opening) was huge for us, customers began to think the $5 prescription fee went into our pockets,' Ms Rambisheswar told Radio New Zealand.
'Those places are just churning prescriptions out. We try to give advice with every prescription, we've had people asking us to please not close but it's too late.'
A survey of chemist owners conducted by BDO in 2017, when the first Chemist Warehouse store opened in NZ, found 90 per cent were concerned about its arrival.
The local pharmacists are worried they will soon go the way of Australia, with big-box chains effectively pushing everyone out of market.
The vast majority of pharmacies in Australia are run by a just a few powerful companies.
There is Terry White Chemart, meanwhile, Sigma Pharmaceuticals owns brands like Amcal, and Wesfarmers owns Priceline.
But the heavyweight is Chemist Warehouse, which dominates the market share of the $25.9billion industry.
The first of its stores opened in Melbourne in 2000 and since then numbers have exploded, with 491 locations across 370 Australian suburbs, towns and cities.
Its growth has been largely due to its very visible 'lowest price guarantee' which beats a cheaper price found at a competitor.
Similar to hardware giant Bunnings, doing huge volumes of trade allows the stores to sell products at razor thin margins small business can't match, yet still rake in profits.
Also similar to Bunnings, the stores employ a basic-looking aesthetic, filled with paper sale-price tags, to create the image of a discount warehouse - the name is very deliberate.
'The average pharmacist hates us because we have effected the whole margin structure in pharmacy,' co-founder Jack Gance recently told the Small Business Big Marketing podcast.
'If they compete with us 100 per cent, if they match our prices, they'll go broke... they won't even cover their rent.
'So we're not really liked in the industry.'
Chemist Warehouse is a privately-owned company co-founded by Jack Gance (left) and Mario Verrocchi (right with his wife Fiona)
Sydney independent pharmacy owner David Vo sold his Rose Bay pharmacy six months before Chemist Warehouse moved in and 'decimated' the new owners.
'If Chemist Warehouse
