The earliest Griffis Drug Store advertising dates to the early 1880s. It is likely that W.C. Griffis wrote the text himself. He offerred all manners of products and services, including filling doctors' prescriptions and family remedies. Liquor for medicinal purposes, cigars, school books and chalkboard slates were also available.

By the turn of the 20th century, W.C. Griffis used text and testimonials written by his suppliers. These ads were placed in the Enterprise of East Northumberland newspaper each week. Two of these three 1902 ads note that W.A. Douglas was also a druggist with the Griffis pharmacy, but Douglas soon opened his own drug store in 1903. Gould's drug store, another rival pharmacy to Griffis, also opened - his ads started to appear in The Colborne Express by 1921.

This 1917 advertisement shows that Griffis Drug Store also carried livestock medicine for the Cramahe farming community. When this practice exactly started and ended is unknown.

By the 1920s Griffis Drug Store began focussing their newspaper advertising towards announcing weekly sales targeted upon everyday personal products and moved away from drug or pharmacological endorsements. These straightforward and constantly changing sales promotions proved immensely popular with the public and continued through the decades up until present day.