With thousands of companies fighting for a place at the top, pharmacy is a challenging industry. Companies can stay afloat in the overcrowded scene of the pharmacy industry with marketing campaigns, innovations, and strategies for business development.
The E-pharmacy market is one of the most promising areas of business development. It is through the projected market growth the current popularity of this sphere is explained completely. The e-pharmacy market globally is estimated at $42.32 in 2018, according to the research by Zion. By 2025, the market is expected to grow up to $107.53, and a CAGR of around 14.26% is shown.
Now, would you like to explore the medicine delivery app development factor?
This article will explain what benefits you will be able to reap over the upcoming years and why you should be investing in a pharmacy delivery app. The following are the points we will be discussing today:
- Main benefits of medicine delivery app for companies and businesses
- A prescription delivery app showing the best business models
- Aspects included within the medicine delivery app development
- Technological stack required for pharmacy app online
- Making money with a medicine delivery app
- Comprehensive guide in managing medicine delivery app development process
- Primary cost drivers for the prescription delivery app.
So, let us now check out the way to create a medicine delivery app and transform it into a successful business:
Why Should Businesses Invest in Medicine Delivery Apps in 2021
The medicine delivery apps are rising in their popularity. Due to coronavirus that is spreading across the world, they are predicted to witness a massive surge, and there is also a rise in the demand for these home delivery medicines.
The following are the main benefits of prescription delivery apps that are for customers:
- From the comfort of their homes, ordering the right medicines
- No requirement to leave the home
- Massive selection of medicine
- Greater access to the details on medicine and drugs
- Checking out the discounts and the special offers
- Being able to track orders
- Rapid price comparison
Even for the pharmacies, the medicine apps offer benefits:
- A greater pool of customer
- Advanced analytics
- Strong marketing tools
- Greater customer engagement
- Ease of customer retention
The medicine delivery app development is a great promising business area, and there is no doubt about this. Some solutions offer home medicine delivery to grow in popularity due to the recent epidemiologic situation in the world and uncertain future.
You will get a secret weapon that will assist you to stand among competitors over the years to come and start creating your prescription delivery app today.
The Business Model For a Pharmacy Delivery App
To run their businesses and to generate revenue, the medicine delivery companies mostly use two business models. You need to first decide on the business model that will suit your business before you start with the medicine delivery app development.
Let’s take a dive into the two primary business models and check out their difference:
1st Business Model
For the bigger pharmacies that store a lot of medications, the business model is completely suitable. These companies can expand from offline to the online world and create medicine delivery app for their own business.
High brand recognition is the main advantage of such a business approach is. It is this business model that needs to have a massive inventory of drugs on offering still.
2nd Business Model
It acts as an intermediary between the customers and medicine suppliers, being the second business model implies. From the third-party pharmacies, such prescription delivery apps serve as an order aggregation system and deliver the medicine.
To store any drugs, this business model does not need the creators of such apps. To take, process, and send orders to the pharmaceutical delivery drivers, they are responsible.
You will have to select one of the available business models before you start with medicine delivery app development, depending on the type of business. You will also be able to better organize the development process coming up with the best feature set and find a vendor with relevant experience in this way.
Features of Prescription Delivery App
The medicine delivery app can be developed in several different ways. You might require to develop up to four separate parts of the apps depending on the business model you are using and business needs. A pharmacy delivery app consists of the following elements in most cases:
- App for customers
- App for pharmacies
- Admin panel
- App for drivers
Features for Customers
It should be included in medicine delivery app development as you find a list below containing the basic features:
- Registration and Login
Inside your applications, the users should be able to create an account. In several different ways, this feature can be approached with the highly efficient one is in integrating the social login to speed up the process of sign-ins and sign-ups.
- Profile management
The customers should be able to add their personal information like name, shipping address, etc., after creating a new user account. The ‘forgot password’ features should also be included in the profile management.
- Add prescription
For further verification by the pharmacists, the users should be able to add prescriptions.
- Search medicine
Finding some drugs is the main reason why customers are using prescription delivery apps. Since it will be assisting customers in finding products that they need without having to spend much time in your application, providing a strong search for medicines is mandatory here. It is possible to allow search by the manufacturers, similar medicine, categories, etc., and to add different filters.
- Order medicine
Within your pharmacy delivery app, the customers should be able to place orders.
- Pay for orders
The pharmacy industry is of no exception as each year is brought about by an increase in mobile payment. You will have to offer patients the ability to pay for their orders without having to leave any kind of application.
- Order history
Especially for long-term customers with chronic diseases, it is nice to have a feature here. Patients will be able to quickly reorder medicine without having to navigate through your app again by visiting such a section inside your app.
- Drug details
The customers generally tend to review a product and find all the required information, mainly if the product concerns their health, before making a purchase.
- Ratings & feedback
Reporting any issues, rating products and services that you are offering, the customers should be able to report any issues.
- Provide page
For the businesses that are working on the second business model, it is the feature that is important. The page of the provider should be witnessed by the user who can view the product on offer and leave a review of that provider.
- Notification
In terms of implementing this feature, there are several different ways. You can take this feature even further and remind them about the need to replenish the stock of the medicine that they use on a regular basis in order to treat few chronic diseases is how you can remind the customers.
- Refund query
To show your customer that they are protected while working with your application it is yet another feature.
You can also include few unique ones in medicine delivery app development apart from the basic features.
How to Allure Your Customers With a Strong Prescription Delivery App:
- Discounts & reward system
Acquiring a new customer is five times as expensive as the retention of an existing one is what you need to remember. In terms of user retention, the discounts can become quite a powerful weapon that can help you keep an interest in your medicine delivery app.
- Fast reordering
This great feature is very time-efficient. Every week, month, etc., users can set up an automatic refill of the medicine. For users with chronic diseases, the scheduled delivery feature is extremely important.
- Search for substitutes
By offering some similar medications that allow users to look for ones inside your pharmacy delivery app, you can increase the likelihood of order placement.
- Built-in chat
To ask you and your partners the questions about drugs, delivery, components, and other important details, this feature allows the users.
- Order tracking
This feature will become a life savior for busy people allowing users to track their purchases.
- Online doctor consultation
Allowing users to get an online doctor consultation; this prescription delivery app can become a part of the bigger system.
Features for the Pharmacies
Even for the pharmacy staff, the medicine delivery app also has a panel. If you sell your own products or allow third-party vendors to sell in your application, these features can be used.
- Register/Login
You will not be able to go without this feature if you decide to build an online pharmacy app where third-party vendors will sell their products.
- Account Management
The vendors should be able to provide the business details and add information when required after they have created an account.
- Order management
To process and manage orders, make the returns, control the refunds, verify the prescriptions, this feature should help the pharmacies.
- Order notifications
For fast order processing, notifying pharmacy staff on receiving new orders is important.
- Digital prescriptions
The pharmacies need to view as well as verify the prescribed files.
- Payments
Since a pharmacy should be able to receive payments directly in your app, get information about all active payments, and control their flow, it is one of the must-have features.
- Order history
Historical information regarding all orders is offered to the pharmacy staff.
You can also enhance your pharmacy delivery app with the additional features as follows apart from its basic features:
- Analytics
Into the sales and the payments, this is the feature that offers you the insights.
- Push notifications
To tell about order processing status, offering discounts allow the pharmacies to interact with the customers with push notifications.
- Discounts
The pharmacies are assisted to sell more with the robust system.
- Delivery tracking
The pharmacies are able to keep track of the order delivery.
- Related medications
To help the pharmacies to sell more by offering similar medicine, it is yet another feature that is designed.
- Built-in chat
Customers can have a lot of questions and might also look for help to find the required information when it comes to the medications. Pharmacies will be able to answer their questions and offer patients professional recommendations through the built-in chat.
Features for the Admins
The important part of any prescription delivery app is the admin panel. The following are the main aspects that you can develop through this:
- Dashboard
A strong dashboard for the management of the orders, customers, deliveries, and others.
- Payment gateways
It includes the integration with several payment solutions to allow customers to make their payments directly in your app through this medicine delivery app development.
- Analytics
You get an insight into the orders along with their statuses, chargebacks, payment, canceled orders, etc. is real-time analytics.
- Order tracking
Across every registered pharmacy, the admins should be able to check out the orders that are placed by the customers.
- Customer support
The customers will not be left alone with issues, and problems are what it ensures. For clarification, the admins should be able to call their customers.
- Inventory management
It is an important feature to keep track of the expiration dates, preparation for seasonal spikes in demand along with allowing timely replenishment of products.
- Users and suppliers management
All the users, pharmacies, suppliers, etc., should be managed by the admins.
Features for the Couriers
For any delivery applications, couriers are the essential part. The creation of a separate app for drivers is what the medicine delivery app development should include. The following are the main features of the medical delivery driver app:
- Registration/Login
It is the main feature for the pharmaceutical delivery driver. In your application, the couriers should be able to sign up. The best solution is to integrate the social login once again.
- Courier profile
The drivers need to add their personal information to the app after registration.
- Push notifications
Since they receive push notifications when a new order is received, and about every changes happening to the order is what this feature makes the work of couriers easier.
- Navigation
To help them find the best routes to a destination without having to leave an application, the couriers should have access to different map systems.
- Delivery status
The order status from received can be changed to delivered by the driver.
The following are some add-on features that can make your application a lot more user-friendly for the medical delivery drivers:
- Analytics
It allows you to track income for a day, week, month, etc., and into how the customers are rating each order as it offers an insight into every delivered order.
- History of delivered orders
The entire history of all the delivered orders can be viewed by the drivers.
- Work status
It is the feature that allows setting the work status from working today off.
Strategies of Monetization for Medicine Delivery App
The possibility to reach a wider audience and increase sales is the main goal to create a prescription delivery app is the business advantage.
How Do You Make Money With the Pharmacy Delivery App
To use to turn on-demand medicine delivery into a profitable business, there are a few approaches to monetization of drug delivery app:
- Fees
You can make money by taking some fee for each product that is sold or for revenue if you are allowing third-party vendors to sell products on your platform.
- Subscriptions
Bringing significant revenue is yet another strategy for monetization. Free delivery or discount on medicine will be offered by the customers who pay for subscriptions.
- Advertisements
Placing ads inside your application is the other popular approach that can turn an online pharmacy delivery into a strong revenue stream.
- Built-in promotion features
For the medicine delivery apps that act as marketplaces for third-party vendors, this strategy is suitable. You can get money to place their companies in the recommended section to show medicine at the first position in search results as you can allow them to promote their own businesses inside your application.
Kinjal Savaliya
Kinjal Savaliya is Business Development Executive USS LLC. At USS LLC we developed the best mobile app development solution for Dating App, Grocery Delivery App, Healthcare App, Laundry & Dry Cleaning App, Pharmacy App, Taxi Booking App.