How To Start An Online Pharmacy Marketplace

In today’s digital age, the convenience of online shopping extends beyond clothing and electronics to essential healthcare products including, prescription medicines, over-the-counter medications, and other healthcare items. Consumer purchases from online pharmacies are continuously increasing because of the accessibility, cost, and time savings that they provide. 

Moreover, according to reports, the online pharmacy industry is expected to reach USD 81.37 billion by 2028 from USD 52.51 billion in 2024, growing at a CAGR of 11.57%. If you are an entrepreneur aiming to enter this booming healthcare industry, starting an online pharmacy marketplace presents a lucrative opportunity. 

Creating your own online pharmacy marketplace can be a profitable business venture. But where do you start? And how you can create an online pharmacy marketplace that’s better than all the rest? 

Well, in this blog post, we will provide you with all the essential information required to create an online pharmacy eCommerce store or marketplace. But before diving into the vast information, first, let’s understand what is an online pharmacy marketplace. 

Table of contents

What Is An Online Pharmacy Marketplace?

An online pharmacy marketplace connects vendors offering healthcare & pharmaceutical products with customers seeking medications and wellness items. Vendors list their products, set prices, and manage inventory, while customers can browse, purchase, and receive pharmaceutical products delivered to their doorsteps. The platform owner facilitates the transactions and can manage the delivery of the orders. The revenue is generated through vendor commissions and delivery fees. 

Popular Online Pharmacy Marketplaces

Knowing about the popular pharmacy marketplaces can make you aware of the scope of this industry. Following are some of the popular online marketplaces: 

Honeybee Health

This California-based online pharmacy marketplace provides medicines at the lowest prices. Their motive was to revolutionize the way people experience pharmacy. Honeybee Health provides pharmaceutical products delivered to patient’s doorstep.

Honeybee Health’s estimated annual revenue is approximately $12.9 million per year. 

Walgreens.com

Walgreens.com is one of the largest pharmacy chains in the United States, offering a wide range of healthcare products. This platform provides convenient access to prescription medicines, over-the-counter drugs, health and wellness items, and more. Walgreens aims to be a trusted healthcare destination. 

Walgreens’ annual revenue was $139.08 billion for 2023 which was a 4.81% increase from 2022. 

ChemistDirect 

This online pharmacy marketplace is the UK’s top online pharmacy with a customer base of around 3 million. They provide over-the-counter medicines, everyday essential toiletries, skincare products, and more. 

ChemistDirect’s annual revenue was $17.1 million in 2023, and total funding is $10 million.

Accelis Pharma

Accelis Pharma is a popular online pharmacy marketplace that offers a range of pharmaceutical products including men’s health, allergy, antibiotics, asthma, weight loss, pain relief, skincare, and more. This platform is known for its reliable services and simplified customer shopping experience. 

The annual revenue of Accelis Pharma is less than $5 million. 

Amazon Pharmacy

This online pharmacy marketplace offers a wide range of prescribed and over-the-counter medicines. Customers can purchase medications conveniently through existing Amazon accounts and can take advantage of Prime membership to avail of free delivery. 

The annual revenue of Amazon Pharmacy is approximately $29.7 Million.

Benefits of an ePharmacy Marketplace

Starting an online pharmacy marketplace can offer numerous advantages for entrepreneurs looking to enter this industry. Let’s know about the benefits:

• Unlike brick-and-mortar pharmacies, you can reach customers in various regions or countries, resulting in potential market expansion. 
• With an online pharmacy marketplace, you can operate round the clock, offering customers the flexibility to browse, buy, and sell pharmaceuticals any time of the day or night. 
• Online pharmacy marketplace streamlines the operational processes and reduces overhead costs compared to traditional pharmacy. Many tasks such as order processing, and payment transactions can be automated. 
• By leveraging the advanced functionality of an online pharmacy marketplace, platform owners can gain useful insights and analytics about their business. This helps in evaluating the performance and growth of the business.

Business Model of an ePharmacy Marketplace

The business model of an online pharmacy marketplace revolves around connecting customers with pharmacy vendors while generating revenue through different channels. Here is how it works.

• At an online pharmacy marketplace, vendors such as pharmacists, healthcare providers, drug wholesalers, and healthcare manufacturers, register as sellers and list their products on the website. 
• The customers then visit the marketplace, browse the product listings, and place an order as per their requirements.  
• Once the customer places the order, the platform handles the order processing. If the purchased product requires a prescription, the platform may facilitate the verification. 
• After order processing, vendors can then arrange for delivery of the product. In some cases, the platform owner also provides delivery services and handles shipping directly.
• In this business model, the platform owner earns revenue by charging vendors a commission for using the marketplace. 

Now that you have gained an understanding of the benefits of starting an online pharmacy and its business model. Further, let’s know how you can build your online pharmacy marketplace. 

How to Build An Online Pharmacy Marketplace 

Building an online pharmacy marketplace may seem a daunting task to begin with, however, with the right information and proper planning this can be achieved easily. In this section, we share a step-by-step guide to build your online pharmacy marketplace. 

Step 1: Do Market Research and Competitive Analysis

This is the foremost step before starting your online pharmacy marketplace. Conduct in-depth market research, gain insights about your target audience, and understand their pain points. Moreover, conduct a thorough competitor analysis, analyze their business model, learn about their strengths and weaknesses, and implement those strategies in your business. 

Step 2: Understand the Online Pharmacy License Requirements 

It is very crucial to obtain necessary licenses and permits before starting an online pharmacy marketplace. The licenses and permits may vary depending on the regulations of the jurisdiction and the type of pharmacy services offered. Moreover, acquiring the necessary licenses from the relevant regulatory authorities, and demonstrating compliance with local laws and regulations, can help your business in the long run. 

Moreover, online pharmacy marketplaces may need permits for specific activities, such as controlled substance dispensing or international shipping. 

Step 3: Choose Important Features For Your Online Pharmacy 

A successful online pharmacy marketplace comprises several advanced features contributing to its success and satisfactory user experience. Here are the most important features to consider if you are starting your own online pharmacy marketplace.

User Experience: An intuitive user interface helps in providing easy navigation, eventually resulting in a positive user experience.

Product Catalog: Effectively list pharmaceutical products including prescription medication, over-the-counter medicines, supplements, medical devices, and more on your platform. A robust product catalog system can help you create, import, export, and manage the list of pharmaceutical products, inventories, and more.

Delivery Management: By utilizing robust delivery management features, sellers and delivery personnel can streamline their delivery processes. Whereas, the admin can manage the delivery personnel, and set delivery charges for customers, and delivery staff’s share.

Simple Checkout Process: This is an essential feature for user satisfaction. Providing multiple payment options such as debit cards, credit cards, eWallets, net banking, and others streamlines the checkout process.

Order Tracking: With this feature, the buyers can track their order status and know when to expect delivery of the order.

Reports and Analytics: This feature enables the admin to get an understanding of the performance of the platform by analyzing the data related to revenue, sales, product reports, buyers’ data, top-selling products, and more. This helps the admin in making informed business decisions. 

Reviews and Ratings: This feature allows users to leave feedback for the products they have purchased on your platform. Moreover, if you get positive reviews that will help in building trust and credibility in the industry. 

Step 4: Determine Development Approach

The next important step is determining the right development approach to build your online pharmacy marketplace. There are two ways to build and launch your online pharmacy platform:

1. Development from scratch
2. Opting for Ready-made software 

• Development from scratch: In this approach, you will build your platform from scratch. You need to hire a team of web developers and designers who will transform your business idea into reality. This development approach requires high financial investment and is a time-consuming process.
• Opting for ready-made software: In this approach, you can simply opt for an off-the-shelf software to launch your online pharmacy marketplace. A ready-made software comes packed with all essential features and functionalities to streamline your business operations. Moreover, these ready-made software solutions are customizable and can be customized as per your requirements and business goals. 

Ready-made software is more cost-effective as compared to development from scratch and takes less time to market while launching your online pharmacy marketplace. 

Step 5: Launch and Market Your Online Pharmacy Marketplace

After choosing a suitable development approach you can launch your online pharmacy marketplace in the industry. Now, the next step is to market your online pharmacy platform, so that it reaches your target market effectively. For marketing your platform you can consider the following marketing strategies:

• Content marketing 
• Blogging
• Search engine optimization
• Social media marketing
• Email marketing
• Showcase reviews and testimonials on the platform

How We Can Help You Launch An Online Pharmacy Marketplace?

Our software ‘Growcer’ is an advanced ready-made software to build and launch your online pharmacy marketplace with mobile apps. This is a feature-packed software that offers numerous pharmacy industry-specific functionalities. It is highly scalable and fully customizable to accommodate your business needs. Moreover, Growcer offers feature-rich and user-friendly ready-made mobile apps for buyers and delivery personnel. 

Features offered by Growcer include:

• User management
• Delivery management
• Pickup management
• Product catalog management
• Multiple payment options
• Multilingual
• Push notifications
• Route navigation for sellers’ and buyers’ location
• Multicurrency
• Order tracking 
• Auto detect user location

Other benefits provided by Growcer:

• White label
• Lifetime license
• No recurring charges
• Customer support
• Android and iOS mobile apps 
• Intuitive user interfaces 
• Pre-integrated APIs
• GDPR Compliance

Conclusion

In the coming future, online pharmacies are the future of the medical industry, and right now is the perfect time to create an online pharmacy marketplace. Starting an online pharmacy platform may seem to be a cumbersome task in the beginning, however, with the right planning, and the information mentioned in this blog, you can successfully establish your online pharmacy business. Feel free to get in touch with our team of experts to know more about launching your own online pharmacy marketplace.