The last few years have witnessed the online pharmacy space heating up in India and elsewhere, where big companies jumped on the online pharmacy bandwagon and splashed the cash to start their massive acquisition spree, which saw the Reliance group acquiring a significant stake in Netmeds. Whereas the Tata Group acquired a majority stake in 1mg. Amazon acquired PillPack and eventually launched its own Amazon Pharmacy services. Furthermore, recently Walmart-owned Flipkart acquired up-and-coming online pharmacy Sastasundar. It's an exciting time to be in the online pharmacy business. There's never been a better time to start an online pharmacy business because of the many benefits and opportunities available today.
You've been thinking about starting an online pharmacy delivery business. You might want to start an online pharmacy delivery business for many reasons. The market is enormous, the possibilities are endless, and the rewards are great. But do you still wonder why you should start an online pharmacy business?
Well, we can tell you why — and it’s not just because it’s easy. It’s also because it works very well! We have built online pharmacy platforms for the last ten years, and we’ve seen our customers succeed at online pharmacy delivery; we want to help you do the same.
An online pharmacy delivery business is an easy way to make big profits with minimal costs. There are many reasons to start an online pharmacy business. The first reason is apparent: the business is profitable. It's not just about making money, though. There are other benefits that come from having an online pharmacy business, including:
- It saves time for consumers as well as providers.
- Helps attract more customers.
- Increased competitive advantage.
- Increased brand awareness and recognition translate into customer loyalty and higher customer retention.
So, if you are thinking about starting an online pharmacy delivery business, but are still in two minds, let us give you reasons why you should start ePharmacy today!
5 Main Reasons to Start Online Pharmacy Delivery Business
1. Bird’s eye view through the dashboard
This online pharmacy delivery business model will enable you to easily manage all orders in one place by consolidating all the processes involved in medicine selling. It provides a bird's eye view of your business, making it easy to see how things are going and which segment needs improvement. You can receive, review, fulfill, and reject orders; monitor highest selling products; see what your customers are putting in the cart but not ordering; customer ratings and reviews; sales reports; etc., all in one place.
The dashboard is packed with features that allow you to manage your pharmacy delivery business more effectively. This is helpful to manage all ins and outs of your business from a single dashboard and manage all your orders seamlessly from one place.
2. Gaining insights into buying trends
These reports help you to identify opportunities to grow your business. You can know which products are selling in quantity during a particular season so that you can stock them, and you never have to reject an order because the medications are not in stock. You can bargain a better deal with your vendor if you buy them before they are in huge demand.
This is where much of the money you'll make will come from. You can learn about your customers and their needs, which can inform your business strategy.
You can understand what your customers want by analyzing their user journey, and you can tweak the user journey and your business plan accordingly that keeps them coming back for more.
You can use all this information to stay ahead of the curve and see where your business needs improvement and where you can attract more customers by providing them with better deals on selected products.
3. Providing a rich customer experience
Customer experience and satisfaction is the key to success in any business. The more you understand your customers, the better you'll be able to serve them and make their lives easier. It's also one of the most critical factors in determining whether or not a customer will stay with you for long-term loyalty.
Your online pharmacy delivery business can provide access to various medicines to a larger audience. And save your consumers from having to go through the stress of searching for medicine from one local store to another. If the medicine is out of stock or unavailable, the status of that product can be updated online. They can purchase medicine order medicines from the comfort of their home, which keeps them glued to the platform. You can benefit from this by building an online pharmacy platform.
4. Lower investment costs, minimum risks, and higher returns
The best part of starting an online pharmacy delivery business is that you don't have to invest so much money upfront. You can start with a small investment. You do not even need a separate store to run your online pharmacy delivery business. You can start with a small investment and grow as you go—low risk as you don't have to invest in any additional physical infrastructure. You can scale your business by investing in marketing, product development, and technology. Also, there are no actual overhead costs as well. And return on investment is significantly higher.
You don't even endure the stress of keeping your local store open 24/7 as well. You can accept orders 24/7 but process them when your store is operating. This way, you can have the best of both worlds - you can, essentially, work for fixed timings but receive orders 24/7 and sell more medicines.
5. Showcase products effectively
Showcasing your products in an organized manner is key to building trust and getting customers interested in buying them. The best way to showcase your products is by displaying them in a way that's easy for customers to understand, navigate and buy from. This is where category-wise product sorting of EMed HealthTech's online pharmacy platform comes in handy, which has significantly increased customers' medicine buying journey.
But, Hold On! Why should I invest in an online pharmacy when I can take orders on WhatsApp?
During our journey, we have come across many curious pharmacists who were wondering why they should invest in online pharmacies when they can take orders via messaging apps such as WhatsApp or email.
To answer their question, let us understand the user journey of both processes.
If you fulfill medicine orders received via messaging apps, they will have to send you the medicine order and the list of medicines that they want to purchase via servers of those companies which may not be secure. Additionally, they can’t even know the composition of the medicines or substitute medicines. And the payment will not be as secure either. And the real burden starts when some of the medications are not available. All-in-all, this is a lengthy and unpleasant process. And it is less secure as well, which is a big no in the healthcare sector.
Now let’s see the ordering process of online pharmacies. Here, after creating the account, the consumer will only be required to fill in their contact information, a list of needed medication, the medicine order, and the payment method. The easy ordering process attracts more customers since it becomes very user-oriented to place orders.
- Order placed
- Medicine order shared
- Prepare order
- Contact the customer to confirm the order
- Edit order
- Confirm order
- Send payment link
- Confirm payment
- Fulfill order
This is why online pharmacies are no match to fulfilling orders received on messaging apps. One of the enormous benefits of having an online pharmacy delivery business is that you can save time for both consumers and providers.
Also, check out the blog The Future of Online Pharmacy in India.
Bonus Tip: If all these reasons don't attract you to the online pharmacy business, keep in mind that more than 200 million people use ePharmacies in India. With this statistic alone, it's easy to see how the market for online pharmacy delivery is exploding. Do you want to miss out on this massive customer base? Which keeps on growing day by day.
This is why developing an online pharmacy delivery business is a great tool to expand your business and attract customers.
But, do you know what's better than a great product? A great service.
We at EMedstore provide you with the most efficient and effective online pharmacy delivery service. So if you're looking for an online pharmacy delivery service that delivers more than just medicine — an online pharmacy delivery service that will help you improve your brand image, boost your sales, attract more customers, and save time for both consumers and providers alike — then look no further than EMedstore. Request your free demo here.