Murray Shore has run a popular pharmacy in pretty much the same spot for 30 years, but unlike real estate mavens who believe the three keys to success are location, location, location, his credo is somewhat different.
“It’s not location, location, location,” he intoned. “It’s service, service, service.”
It’s a formula that appears to be working, as this week, Shore is celebrating the 30th anniversary of his opening.
Going the extra mile for his “patients” has allowed Shore to keep his pharmacy thriving even as independents fall by the wayside to be replaced by big-box stores.
There was a time when medicines were dispensed by owner-operated pharmacies that resembled corner stores, but like the once ubiquitous corner groceries, these have become nearly extinct. Even when Shore was considering opening his pharmacy on Bathurst Street – it currently sits in a small plaza across from the Baycrest Centre – he was asked if that was a good idea.
“How are you going to compete with Shopper’s [Drug Mart]?” he was asked. “You know what my answer was? ‘How is Shopper’s going to compete with me?’”
Treating the people who walked into the store as patients was an important component of his plan to stay afloat. He believes part of that stemmed from his experience working for one year in the pharmacy at Toronto General Hospital. “I saw people as patients, not just customers,” he said. “You empathize with the people quite differently.”
Plus, Shore is clearly “a people person.” He likes to shmooze and he enjoys playing “Jewish geography.”
“I’m good at it,” he acknowledges.
But is it enough to entice people away from the one-stop shops where you can get a prescription filled, and also buy shampoo, toys for the kids and even a bottle of milk?
Shore eschews the ancillary items that used to stock the shelves of independents.
“I’m not a supermarket or a warehouse. I’m a community pharmacy who looks after the patients,” he said.
His is strictly a drug store, but about 25 years ago, he added something that has made the business somewhat unique.
He’d received a phone call from a distraught parent living in Thornhill. “Our child needs a special medicine at SickKids and we need to pick it up every week. Can you make it for us?” she asked him.
“I said, ‘If they can make it, I can make it.’”
He filled the prescription, saved the family the big shlep downtown, and about a year and a half later, completed a course at a school in Houston to become a “compounding pharmacist.”
The designation entitles him to “tailor the medication to the patient, not the patient to the medication.” Fewer than five per cent of pharmacies today can lay claim to the title, he said. Compounding currently makes up 10 to 15 per cent of his business, making the initial investment in Texas well worthwhile. The skill came in handy when a parent asked him to prepare for a child a heart medication that was only 2 milligrams in strength, when prepared tablets started at 10 milligrams.
He’s also developed a special cream to address nausea and vomiting in pregnant women – it’s absorbed through the skin, He then “educated” doctors that he stocked the product.
He also developed his own diaper rash cream to treat his grandchild years ago. Nothing available at the time seemed to be working. Starting with the traditional zinc oxide formulation, he added a couple of ingredients recommended by a pediatric dermatologist that are not available in commercial products. Menachem’s Diaper Cream, named after his grandson, proved quite popular. In fact, “it’s huge,” he said.
With a clientele that is perhaps 80 per cent Jewish, Shore developed kosher ibuprofen liquids to replace unkosher gel capsules. He developed an analgesic suppository to be used on fast days and a kosher maternity vitamin that has proven quite popular as well.
He offers specialty products and free delivery – he uses a courier service for about 40 per cent of prescriptions – and he does charge a premium.
He will make himself available on weekends if the need is there, and he’s found that “people pay for the service and the unique products.
“My business attitude is, God created me to help patients and I try my best at it. Thank God he’s allowed me to make a living at it too.”
