Have the E-Pharmacies finally found the growth pill?

The retail pharmaceutical market in India is valued at around 25 billion dollars, and this market is expected to become 59 billion dollars by the financial year 2023.

Today the role of the pharmacist has evolved from just a medicine seller. (File)

By Shreyans Mehta

We all know that pharmacy and pharmacists play a very important role in our healthcare system. But do you know that pharmacists are considered as the 3rd largest healthcare profession in the world, and due to new technologies and the Internet the pharmacy profession is changing rapidly? In India too, the pharmacy profession is evolving consistently. With this changing scenario in the pharmaceutical industry, the role of pharmacists is also changing continuously.

The retail pharmaceutical market in India is valued at around 25 billion dollars, and this market is expected to become 59 billion dollars by the financial year 2023. The Indian pharmaceutical market is dominated by retail pharmacies. More than 85% of this market is covered by over 12,50,000 plus pharmacy stores in India, and a single pharmacy store is going to serve a minimum of 400 families. With these statistics, you can estimate the exponential growth of the pharmaceutical industry in India.

But during the recent Covid-19 pandemic and lockdowns most of the services were actually done by the retail pharmacies. Now with the advent of E-pharmacies and they spending huge money on advertising and giving huge discounts to lure customers and behavioural shift of customers , retail pharmacies are also digitally transforming themselves to provide the same convenience and super fast medicine delivery .. Medcords with its Sehat Sathi app is facilitating the local medical stores to take their shop online, increasing their product offering, connecting them with specialist doctors and helping them with new products and services for increasing their loyalty with customers even further. This will also increase the business and revenue of your retail pharmacy store.

The growing health awareness and knowledge among users along with many big organized players are shifting the Indian pharmaceutical market from an unorganized to a modern organized sector.

Why do we believe retail pharmacies have finally found the growth pill?

As you already know that the Indian pharmaceutical market is growing exponentially, and currently this market is dominated by retail medical shops. Even though the Indian pharmaceutical market is extremely big with extraordinary growth potential it is still an unorganized market, and most pharmacists are also not getting job satisfaction because of lack of growth.

Today the role of the pharmacist has evolved from just a medicine seller. As today many people prefer to go to a pharmacy store for a normal illness like cough or fever. That’s why a pharmacist also has to counsel the patient about the medicines that they are taking.

In today’s digital world people prefer to buy everything online. So with the great geographical reach, trust of people , retail pharmacies with digital transformation of themselves can become the first digital touchpoint for providing best healthcare products and services in the most efficient, affordable, quick and trusted manner to the people of Bharat..

This simply means that the retail pharmacists will have to take their stores online. But along with selling medicines, they will also have To offer some kind of consultation and other facilities, healthcare products & services. Which is not possible for every pharmacy store owner. As you can not manage everything on your own.

Don’t worry as Medcords is at your rescue. With our Sehat Sathi app, medical stores can get their Store online instantly and receive orders from customers in their area using aayu app. They get their personalised website and also they get many features to market their store from the app itself. This will help to increase your sales and earnings effectively. With this app, medical stores will be able to give doctor consultations to their customers with 33 plus specialties of primary health conditions like a common cold, throat discomfort, fever, fever, skin issues, joint pain, and numerous other categories. A patient can even take a 7 day free follow up with the doctor for health condition updates. Along with that, medical stores can sell aayu card subscriptions to customers, and for each consultation and aayu card sold, pharmacists will earn a commission.

The partner pharmacies have sold products worth 15 mn USD ARR . through sehat sathi app. The Big Brands, pharma companies and D2C brands have associated with us to increase their reach by leveraging their presence and network so its a win win for all, Sehat Sathi gets additional business opportunities & brands gets their ready made distribution platform to reach to masses. Brands like Oziva, Beardo, Mcaffeine, Himalaya Organics, Resonance, Hellopolicy have already been associated with the same for leveraging the network.

On these bases, we can firmly say that Indian retail pharmacies have finally found their growth pill & We very strongly believe the world can exist w/o online pharmacies but it cannot exist without offline pharmacies.

Retail pharmacies are the backbone if India has to become a healthier nation.

(The author is Co-Founder – Sehat Sathi. Views expressed are personal and do not reflect the official position or policy of the Financial Express Online.)

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