Inverary Pharmasave Growing With the Community
When Leonard Chan opened a pharmacy in a new small strip mall, just south of Inverary, in 2018, it was a leap of faith.
Would people turn off from their daily commute to Kingston on Perth Road to get their prescriptions locally, instead of in Kingston where they were often headed to for work? Could Leonard make inroads in the local community to become a trusted service provider, a partner in the healthcare field for a large, rural community of people who did not know him at all?
Pretty soon all of those questions were answered, and over the eight years that Chan Pharmasave has been in business, expansions in service, and the physical space, have been a constant feature.
And when the unit next to the Pharmasave opened up this year, it was an easy, though not inexpensive, decision to occupy the entire space, with a full service pharmacy.
Now that the renovations are fully complete, there is plenty of room for the entire staff of the pharmacy to work, and keep up with an established, ever expanding clientele.
“When I first opened, I thought I would have about 3 people working here,” said Leonard, from the store last week, “myself and a technician and maybe someone on cash, but the business has grown pretty quickly, and I spend more time on that, than I ever expected.”
While he still fills a lot of prescriptions and meets with patients to provide expanded pharmacy services that have come on, in the last few years, there are other full and part-time pharmacists, and skilled staff, working in the store, at all times.
“I think we have what we need now,” he said, pointing to the back part of the pharmacy, which takes up over half the space in the building, along with a private consultation room.
The new store had room for more over the counter medications than before, as well as a small grocery section.
“There is a need for groceries for convenience, maybe to save a trip to Kingston once in a while, so we added that once we were making the store bigger,” said Leonard, “and that has been well received.”
Even though the Pharmasave has been a success from the start, it has taken years for everyone in a catchment area that extends to Perth Road, Battersea and Sunbury and Latimer Road and its offshoots, to know about it.
“I think it is only in the past year or two that I have stopped hearing from people coming in for the first time saying that they had not known we were here,” he said.
It is of mutual benefit to have The Cookery and Back to Health, which have both attracted a dedicated clientele as well, in the same complex as the Pharmasave.
“It has worked out well for everyone.”
With Maple Country Home and Farm just to the south, and the new Home Hardware Store extending the business corridor of Inverary to the north, and the post office and Paradiso Pizza and Subs in the centre, Inverary has developed a linear business and service footprint over the past 5 years, and there are opportunities for new businesses to come on.
Leonard Chan started his business as a young pharmacist with an idea, and has quickly become a model for future entrepreneurs to look to, as they consider the potential of a previously untapped local market..
