Your neighbourhood pharmacies are in the news, they were on strike last Wednesday, 14th October, against e-Pharmacies (us!). You can watch the debate in the video links below from CNBC avaaz channel. We hope it helps you better understand the current situation.
Amid this hullabaloo, we’d like to take this opportunity to explain how we function and what value we deliver to you.
When you are sick, your doctor decides your medical condition and prescribes medicines on the basis of the diagnosis. Here is where the real puzzle starts. It’s humanly impossible for your doctor to keep a track of all the medicines that can be useful in treating your symptoms. There are as many as 1.5 lakh medicines available in the market today, with 300 new ones hitting the shelf every month. All your doctor can resort to is the limited information tendered by marketing professionals of big pharma companies.
A rather comforting news is that many companies are bringing cheaper generic substitutes of highly expensive medicines, just that we (including your doctor) don’t get to know about them. This is because either these companies don’t have the budget to do full-blown marketing, or they can’t offer the kind of margins that pharma giants can offer to pharmacies. On top of this, most pharmacies can store up to 15 thousand medicines only, and obviously those small companies would barely find a place there.
This is the picture on the supply side. Now comes the most critical aspect of buying prescribed medicines and that is: “Do you really know about your medicine?” It makes all the sense that you should know about your medicine in and out. Things like, “what is it made of”, “how does it interact with other medicines”, “are there any other alternatives available”, etc.
We (e-Pharmacies) are trying to solve these pain points, and have been successful to a significant extent. While addressing these issues, the law restricts us from stocking medicines. So we have to rely on your nearest chemists to fulfil the order. However, these pharmacies do not have an accurate idea of their inventory, hence we have trouble arranging your medicines at times. Oh by the way, we have added significant business to your neighbourhood pharmacies (They just forgot to mention it in the news). We also make sure that your prescription is thoroughly checked (twice!) by qualified pharmacists & is fulfilled by certified pharmacies only. We also store a copy of the bill (in addition to a copy of your prescription), batch number of medicines dispensed to you and its expiry date. This makes sure that you are fully protected as a consumer. This of course slows us down, but we believe that medicines should not be treated like other packed commodities. We know you agree.
So why us? We got better price, full & accurate information about your medicines and significantly larger choice of medicines. We know the real time price of most of the medicines, collected across 11 cities we operate in. So we work to make sure you get the best medicine are delivered to your doorstep, at the lowest market price. And we are improving every day.
but medicines like mtp kit which is not available to small retailers u are giving it like that only,jst by seeing prescription as nowadays doctors write a prescription by taking Rs50-Rs100 and u deliver it
I ordered a lot from 1mg for my mother but normally Doctors only put big brands medicines in the prescription. Now when I select the cheaper and better ones you guys are not fulfilling those orders.
When the salts are same and your website itself suggests those as substitutes then what’s the harm in giving them.
Please consider this and allow customers to order the generic ones. Then it will really make sense and fulfill your purpose.
PONNI MEDICALS