Business of Excellence: Crosby Drug

• Business: Crosby Drug

• Location: Crosby, North Dakota

• Owner: Gabe Gratz

• Years in Business: 45, 5 under current owner

Joyce Woodward, manager of Crosby Drug in Crosby, North Dakota, has seen first-hand the difference adding point-of-sale technology to a retail pharmacy can do. She worked at J. Co. Drug for 13 years when it operated on a cash register. When Gabe Gratz and his partners bought the place five years ago and modernized it with Paladin Data Corporation retail technology, Joyce took over as manager. She says the change in operational efficiency was like night to day. 

When Gratz chose Paladin as his store’s technology provider, he not only modernized his store, he improved his entire town’s access to prescription drugs and over-the-counter (OTC)items.

Crosby Drug is the only pharmacy in town, and thanks to a decades-old state law that requires pharmacies to be 51% owned by a pharmacist, it doesn’t have any chain-store competition. That makes Crosby Drug the go-to place for pretty much everything everyone in Divide County.

So, as Joyce says, “We’re on a first-name basis with our customers.”

 That’s easy to picture. Crosby is a small town of about 1,300 hardy souls on the northern prairie about six miles south of the Canadian border where winters are brutally cold and summers are hot and damp.  J Co. Drug had been Crosby’s hometown pharmacy for close to 40 years before the change of ownership. Until the addition of Paladin to the store, it had been doing business pretty much the same way it had since it opened four decades earlier.

“I am not computer savvy. So, watching it go from the old-time cash register to this computer was scary for me,” Joyce explains. “But once it was done, it was easy.” 

Paladin’s intuitive point-of-sale system and outstanding customer support make it simple to learn, teach and use. Its Market Driven Inventory Management™ system makes it Joyce’s best friend when it comes to managing the store.

Crosby Drug has just about everything a small-town pharmacy can carry. It has an extensive supply of Hallmark cards, gifts for every occasion, locally sourced merchandise, toys, pet gifts, and much more. Its pharmacy serves the health needs of practically everybody in town and beyond.

Paladin also provides the vital link between the pharmacy and over-the-counter products and checkout. It seamlessly integrates with all leading Rx systems. It provides accurate prescription verification, supplies built-in patient privacy protection, complies with all federal regulations and insurance requirements, and automatically calculates prices and co-pay amounts.

Joyce says Paladin’s link to the pharmacy lets customers pick up their prescriptions, do more shopping, and settle up at the checkout counter. It manages customers’ charge accounts and keeps all their OTC items properly stocked, categorized and priced. It keeps the store operating smoothly and easy to manage. It also drastically simplified year-end inventory.

“Starting in December, we used to go through the store and write down everything we had and the price. It was a pain,” she says. “Now, inventory is a lot quicker. Not as big of a headache. With the cost of wages being so high, I don’t have to hire people to help us do inventory so it saves us money.”

Joyce also appreciates the reports Paladin provides to measure her store’s success.

“I use the reports every single day when I balance out the registers. It’s nice that I can see how much business we did on each register. How much is in cash, checks, et cetera. It is wonderful,” she says. “It shows me how much business the pharmacy did and how much is taxable so I can differentiate it in my books. It also shows me all of that from previous years so I can compare them. It helps us stay on track.”