With rising overhead costs, growing economic pressures and uncertainties, dental practices across the United States are facing tough financial realities. Salaries, rent, insurance, new and emerging technologies, equipment upgrades—these overheads continue to rise while insurance reimbursements often remain stagnant.1
The American Dental Association estimates that across the country average dental practice overhead is running at around 62% of total revenue, meaning margins are tight and there’s little room for error.2
So, while cost control and reducing expenditure are sound business objectives, these can only go so far without compromising your services. Increasing patient numbers will obviously increase revenue, but this also comes with additional costs in terms of staffing, chair time and other expenditure, as well as potentially putting additional pressure on your already hard-working team. In such an environment, one of the most effective ways for dentists to maintain profitability and ensure long-term sustainability is to diversify revenue streams.3
One increasingly popular and practical approach is to offer in-office dispensing and retailing.
The Business Case for Retailing:
By retailing oral health products, you can help offset increasing overheads without requiring more chair time or expenditure.
Through offering high-quality products, practices can capture revenue otherwise lost to pharmacies, supermarkets, or online retailers. With many patients already spending money on oral care products in such outlets, bringing these transactions into your practice where you can control the quality and reinforce your clinical recommendations, make a lot of sense.
Retailing helps practices to:
- Generate supplemental income without increasing chair time or staffing costs
- Support patients with oral health products you have selected
- Reinforce treatment recommendations and increase compliance
- Add a valuable service that brings clarity and ease to your patients’ purchases
- Foster patient loyalty and encourage repeat business
Being Comfortable Retailing Oral Care Products
Dental practices are foremost healthcare establishments where people go for guidance and treatment to achieve and maintain good oral health. However, they’re also businesses, and like any business, they need to be profitable to survive and thrive. For many practice owners, one of the biggest stumbling blocks to business growth isn’t clinical, it’s commercial, including the issue of selling.3
Some dental professionals are concerned that recommending and selling products could undermine their clinical integrity. But when done correctly—with appropriate product selection and patient education—retailing can enhance your standard of care and directly benefit both your practice and your patients.
If you think of offering products as a form of service, it becomes a powerful and ethical way to improve your patients' lives and strengthen the bottom line of your practice:
- Retailing products in practice isn’t about persuading someone to buy something they don’t need, but offering a solution they’ll benefit from
- Most patients already buy oral care products at the drugstore or online, often overwhelmed by choice. By guiding them toward high-quality, clinically effective products, you’re doing them a service—not a disservice
- Recommending the right tools and showing patients how to use them, boosts compliance and improves oral health outcomes between visits. With your product and a clear understanding of how to use it, patients are more likely to adhere to your treatment recommendations
Some Simple Tips
Here are a few ways to make retailing products easier, more successful and aligned with your professional outlook.
Listen and Provide Solutions
By coming to your practice, a patient has already placed trust in you by choosing your care. You and your team can introduce suitable solutions in a conversational, non-pushy way. Explain the benefits and options clearly and relate them to the patient’s specific needs or concerns. Patients will be more receptive if you frame your message simply as helpful information.
Choose Products Carefully
Which oral care products you stock will go a long way to determining the additional revenue you might be able to generate. Here’s a few things to consider:
- Only stock products that align with your philosophy on care, have confidence in and would recommend to your patients
- Innovative products that solve a real oral care need and are clinical proven are more likely to be appealing to patients
- Think about your patient demographic and select products that are appropriate and affordable for your client base
- You can’t compete with drugstores or supermarkets on price, so consider more premium products when price is less important and where your professional endorsement will be seen as added value by your patients
- Stock products with a good margin. You may have limited display or storage space, so make sure that space is utilized for maximum returns
Know Your Products
Ensure everyone on your team is familiar with your products, how they work, and why they’re recommended. Make sure they can answer questions and explain product benefits and frame product recommendations as an extension of your clinical care—not a sales pitch.
If You Wouldn’t Use it, Don’t Recommend it!
It’s about building trust, so if you or a team member can personally vouch for a product, that endorsement becomes even more powerful!
Don’t Oversell
As there’s a fine line between informing and overwhelming, pay attention to your patient’s cues—if they’re tired, anxious, or are pushed for time it may not be the right moment for a discussion about products.
Support Your Message
Some patients will want to reflect on a decision or talk it through with a partner or parent before making a purchase. Provide quality patient materials or links to videos and websites where they can find more information in their own time.
Make It Attainable
Affordability can be a barrier, so offering financing options or payment plans can help patients to obtain a product that will benefit their oral care.
The Case for Willo
As an illustration of the type of product you may want to consider, why not take a look at Willo? Willo is the world’s first fully automated toothbrush designed for kids to make brushing easy, fun and effective. It’s revolutionizing the way children and their parents approach oral care.
Here’s why Willo could be a smart addition to your shelves:
- It solves a real problem: Many parents struggle with getting their kids to brush correctly and consistently. Willo removes the guesswork with hands-free, guided cleaning that ensures compliance and thorough plaque removal every time
- It's clinically effective: Willo is clinically proven to remove up to 7x more plaque than a manual toothbrush, especially in hard-to-reach areas4
- It’s innovative: Offering cutting-edge tools like Willo enhances your practice’s reputation as a leader in pediatric prevention
- It drives non-clinical revenue: Each unit sold brings additional revenue to the practice—without taking up valuable chair time or requiring additional labor. It delivers healthy margins: As a premium product, Willo provides excellent returns and with ancillary products such as sensory-friendly toothpaste and replacement brush heads—plenty of opportunity for repeat purchases too!
Our team will be delighted to talk to you about the opportunities Willo offers dental practices, so contact us here: https://willo.com/pages/contact
In summary
As the dental industry continues to evolve and face new pressures, practices need to embrace innovation—not only in clinical tools but in business models. By integrating thoughtful, patient-centered retail into your office, you can drive new revenue, support better outcomes, and create a more complete and trusted experience for your patients.
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References:
1. Wright J. Critical challenges facing dentistry. JADA. 2024;155:1–2.
2. American Dental Association. Practical strategies to reduce dental practice expenses. Available at: https://adanews.ada.org/new-dentist/2022/march/ask-the-expert-practical-strategies-to-reduce-dental-practice-expenses. March 2022. Accessed April 2025.
3. Reynolds R. Selling Skills. Dentistry. 2017. Available at: https://dentistry.co.uk/2017/12/07/selling-skills. Accessed April 2025.
4. Willo. Data on File.
