Setting the Right Price at the Pharmacy:Pharmacy products, store by store
In the pharmacy sector, the price of reimbursable drugs—and even the purchase margin on generic drugs—is determined outside the pharmacy. The events of 2025, when the discount cap was lowered from 40% to 30% before being restored to 40%, served as a reminder of this.
Fair pricing therefore hinges on parapharmacy and OTC products. It is based on two strategies within the same aisle: introductory prices on comparable products and full margins on consulting services; and, within a chain, on prices that are updated with limits set per pharmacy.
In a pharmacy, the owner does not set the prices for most of what he sells. He sets the prices for non-prescription health products.
This guide explains how to set this price, from individual independent pharmacies to chains and groups that operate multiple retail locations.
What Has Really Changed for Pharmacies Since 2025
Setting the right price at a pharmacy means determining the price for the only portion of the product lineup over which the pharmacy has control: over-the-counter health products and non-reimbursable nonprescription drugs.
Regarding reimbursable drugs, 2025 served as a reminder that even the purchase margin is determined elsewhere. An August 2025 decree lowered the cap on discounts for generic drugs from 40% to 30%, before temporarily restoring it to 40% in October.
The Social Security Funding Act for 2026 finally set the caps at 40% for generic drugs and 20% for biosimilars (Le Quotidien du Pharmacien, January 2026).
Our take: The episode is over, but the lesson remains. A pharmacy that doesn't manage its over-the-counter drug section is entirely at the mercy of decisions made outside its walls.
retail pharmacies in France as of January 1, 2024— a network that continues to shrink.
(Court of Auditors, RALFSS 2025, chapter “Retail Pharmacies: A Model in Transition,” May 2025)
According to the Federation of French Pharmaceutical Unions (FSPF), the average gross margin for a pharmacy will range from 28 to 33 percent of revenue in 2025.
The net margin ranges from 5% to 10%, reaching up to 12% for the top performers and falling below 3% for the weakest companies.
The scope within which the holder retains control
The mechanism for setting the price of reimbursed medications and the role of the CEPS are detailed in our article on regulations and pharmacy profit margins.
Here, only one thing matters: for parapharmacy and OTC products (cosmetics, personal care items, dietary supplements, and non-reimbursable medical devices), prices are set freely, just as in a specialty store.
This scope varies depending on the pharmacy's size. The average purchase amount also differs: approximately €17 for over-the-counter (OTC) medications versus €59 for prescription medications, according to GERS 2025 data.
The share of over-the-counter products in a pharmacy’s revenue: approximately 10% on average across the network, but 20 to 30%, and sometimes as high as 50%, in large-format pharmacies
(Le Moniteur des Pharmacies, citing Xerfi, November 2025).
Regardless of its share of the mix, this is the only area where a pricing strategy has a direct commercial impact.
Two pricing strategies in the same aisle
The drugstore carries two product lines that are not managed in the same way. The comparable products—which customers are familiar with and check online—serve as loss leaders.
The products recommended by sales associates at the counter are rarely compared to others and may carry a more favorable markup.
Counterintuitive: A pharmacy loses margin more often by charging too much for a handful of comparable products than by offering advice at too low a price. Customers judge the price of the entire pharmacy based on those few products.
A single coefficient applied across the entire store makes both mistakes at once: it’s too high where comparisons are made, and too low where recommendations are given.
GENIUS Competitor aggregates the prices that Booper collects online (websites, marketplaces) and the data provided by the network. GENIUS Link verifies that the compared formats are identical, and then GENIUS Price applies a pricing rule specific to each pharmacy, with a minimum and maximum price.
The price diagnostic Booper makes it possible to identify, early on, the few dozen items that actually serve as loss leaders in a given pharmacy, rather than treating the entire shelf with the same level of effort.
Managing Seasonal Fluctuations Without Compromising Your Price Image
The drugstore industry operates on a cycle of predictable peaks: allergies in the spring, sunscreen in the summer, colds and immunity in the winter—not to mention the marketing campaigns pushed by pharmaceutical companies.
The common approach is to track these peaks on a day-to-day basis, depending on remaining inventory. Our belief is that the price trajectory is determined before the peak, not during it.
A promotion focused on a few selected items helps maintain the perceived value of the brand better than a broad discount across an entire aisle to clear out inventory.
The Most Costly Pricing (and Update) Errors
- Apply a single markup rate to the entire department, without distinguishing between compared items and recommended items.
- Comparingprices with a competitor without checking the unit of measurement: an incorrect comparison of prices per milliliter or per tablet skews the entire analysis.
- Combine supplier discounts and customer promotions without tracking the net effect on the margin.
- Launching a seasonal promotion without a start date: the promotion will then be extended by default.
Price Updates: How a Pharmacy Chain Is Losing Margin Without Realizing It
In a network or consortium, the most costly pricing error isn't a bad price. It's a price that hasn't been adjusted: a supplier rate that has been raised, while the selling price has remained at the old level.
The opposite also happens: a price recommended by the chain headquarters is followed in one pharmacy but ignored in another. A customer who goes from one to the other notices this before the owner does.
Our belief is that, within a network, pricing should be managed using price ranges per pharmacy (target, floor, ceiling) and alerts when a price falls outside those ranges, rather than through a fixed pricing schedule sent out once a year.
The brand owner that regains control over its pricing does not do so across the entire catalog, but only within the scope where pricing is a decision.
Does your drugstore pricing follow a specific method, or are you basing your prices on those of the competitor across the street?
30 minutes to objectively assess the margin potential within your truly actionable scope.
See also in this feature
- Pricing in the Retail Sector: What's Changing (and What Isn't)
- Organic Price Schedule: Why a National Standard Is Costing Money
- Specialty organic stores, supermarkets, e-commerce: How to Compare Different Prices
- Organic pricing by category: competitive for fresh produce, expensive for groceries
Frequently Asked Questions
How can a pharmacy owner set the right price for the products in their pharmacy?
Should a pharmacy align its prices with those of the neighborhood drugstore or supermarket?
Will the reduction in rebates on generic drugs take effect in 2026?
Should the same markups be applied to all drugstore products?
How can you manage prices during peak seasons without compromising your price image?
How Can You Avoid Pricing Errors at the Pharmacy?
How often should drugstore prices be updated?
What tool can I use to track local competition in the drugstore sector without spending hours on it every week?
What pricing software is best for a pharmacy or a network of pharmacies and drugstores?
Sources
- Le Quotidien du Pharmacien, “Measures Planned (or Not) for 2026,” January 14, 2026:lequotidiendupharmacien.fr
- National Order of Pharmacists, Temporary Reinstatement of the 40% Discount Cap on Generic Drugs, October 2025:ordre.pharmacien.fr
- Court of Auditors, RALFSS 2025, chapter “Retail Pharmacies: A Model in Transition” (May 2025):ccomptes.fr
- FSPF (Federation of French Pharmaceutical Unions), data on gross and net margins for pharmacies, 2025:fspf.fr
- Le Moniteur des Pharmacies, "The Share of Over-the-Counter Products in Pharmacy Sales," citing Xerfi, November 2025:lemoniteurdespharmacies.fr
- GERS, Average Pharmacy Basket by Sales Type (Prescription and OTC), 2025 Data
Further Reading
Management doesn't approve a price; it approves a trade-off between margin, volume, and price image. Presenting a single recommendation means asking management to trust you. Presenting the cost of each option gives management the information it needs to make a decision.
A sound projection provides a range rather than a single figure, specifies what is being excluded, and anticipates the gap between the projected increase and the actual increase. When compared with actual results, it establishes the credibility of the next projection.
A franchisor cannot impose a minimum resale price: doing so is punishable by law; the franchisor may only recommend a price or set a maximum. A franchisee’s margin is therefore governed by a documented target, defined by network segment and applied uniformly across each segment.
The best indicator of this governance is not adherence to the suggested retail price, but the rate of compliance with it by segment. A suggested retail price that franchisees in a given area do not follow often signals a poorly set price, not a lack of discipline.
Optimix merged with Maxxing in July 2025, and PricingHUB was acquired by Akeneo in June 2026. For their customers, the question of the independence of the pricing roadmap has become a legitimate concern.
What sets a query apart in France isn't the processing speed: it's the native support for French rules, pricing by store or by zone, the validation process, and testing with your own data.