Online Pharmacy in Bangladesh: A New Business Opportunity

Today I am focusing on online pharmacy in Bangladesh as a new business opportunity. Throughout this article, I have described all factors of how online medicine store works and creates new business opportunities and also how the profit margin will be increased using those opportunities.

So it will be better for you to go through this article very consciously to adopt every opportunity that might be handy for your future business plan.

“We are in the digital world” is a word we are hearing everywhere quite often but now this is the only fact, which is for none other than this COVID-19 pandemic.

Almost everything from education to the weekend party all are moving towards online and which is establishing as our future behavior. So the fact is, online is emerging as the most crowded means most traffic generating platform, a big opportunity for your business development. Those who are unable to shift on the online platform, will stay behind and also will fall into a survival crisis surely even after the pandemic ends.

Present Situation

In the present situation global economy has shaken up massively while online medicine store booming their business on a huge scale.  It’s because consumer behavior has changed a lot, they are now thinking not to go out and shop physically which is impacting a lot to the seller and buyer’s traditional journey.

Medicine is a lifesaving product that is a must and most needed in our daily life and especially when it’s a developing country like Bangladesh where many fatal diseases are prevailing at a high rate.

As most of the people are now scared to go out and do shopping, when you need urgently to buy medicine, the best option in hand is to sit on the computer or laptop or touch the mobile screen and get the medicine in a few hours sitting on the same chair in the drawing-room in a cheaper price. Yes, all these facilities having medicine at home is for increasing the online pharmacy in Bangladesh or online medicine store in Bangladesh which is growing now with a huge prospect.

Let’s dive into the details and find out the opportunities.

What is Online Pharmacy?

First of all, let me introduce an online pharmacy or e-pharmacy.

Online pharmacy is an online medicine store where buyers and sellers interact using the internet. The buyer uploads the prescription to the seller specified field and makes the payment accordingly, the seller sends all the medicine to the buyer’s required destination.

Not clear? Ok, suppose you are sick and the doctor prescribed some medicine and you can’t go outside then what to do? You have to buy medicine online. Just google “online pharmacy in Bangladesh”, all the online medicine stores in Bangladesh will appear then select any one of them and go to their website or apps. After entering you will find a button to upload your prescription, immediately they will contact you and after making an online payment they will send the medicine to your home.

Hope this is now quite clear what is online pharmacy or e-medicine store is.

The steps to establish an online pharmacy:

Once you decided on an online pharmacy business get ready for more than just registering with Government authority. Here I have tried hard to make an easy explanation of all the necessary steps together to establish an online pharmacy for your better understanding and also to ensure that your business is well planned, registered properly, and also covering all legal issues.

Let’s begin,

Planning:

Getting success and how quickly you got it, depends on how well you did the planning at the very first step of your business. Make a good plan, get success easily.

For better planning you need to follow the following steps:

Opening and ongoing cost calculation

First of all, you need to buy or rent a shop or store, computer, hire staff, need to buy medicine, and many other regular expenses like rent, salaries, etc. You have to make a significant plan for all these expenses, how long you will continue as an investment.

Market targeting

You have to make a plan to prioritize your consumer label. Those who are buying bulk quantity regularly are your front line customer likely you need to segregate the rest of the customers in a different slot and that will help a lot to conduct your business smoothly.

Develop and Marketing of Website

It is an important part of starting an online pharmacy business. You should develop an e-commerce website where all generic medicines’ information is available. Your website should be user-friendly, so that, visitors can easily find their required medicine and can place their order.

After developing the website, you need to do digital marketing for it. There are many digital marketing tools available. SEO is the best digital marketing tool considering generating traffic and sales conversion rates. You can also your social media marketing, email marketing, SMS marketing, etc. for getting customers.

Generating income

This is a vital issue to run your business. If you fail to generate income your business will collapse. Need tactful planning to generate income at the online pharmacy in Bangladesh. This is a critical issue for online medicine shops in Bangladesh. In any business, if you want to gain profit, make sure you made the profit in purchasing and this is also fit here in the medicine business. You have to be well known for the generic name and brand name of medicine as it’s almost essential for the online pharmacy business.  You can generate profit more at brand names rather than generic but government regulations most often charge to issue a generic name.

Pricing plan

There is a tiny exciting scope of pricing against the prescription because the maximum medicine cost is determined by the pharmaceutical and insurance company. Purchaser spends a thousand times more to buy a common but rare drug or the imported drug for their chronic debases. You have to monitor all around your more naive hood constantly to apt with the competition.

Strategic planning for Profit gaining

Typically a medicine store holds a profit margin of 10% to 30% on maximum prescription. If you are a steady seller, the profit margin will boost 2-3 times higher after year-end calculation. How you maintain the relation with the pharmaceuticals or the medicine suppliers will determine how much you will gain the profit margin. A big shop buys bulk quantity at a cheaper wholesale rate whereas a small store needs to handle the supplier intelligently and entertain the suppliers in some cases to have the best deal with the vendors.

Naming your business

Your business name is your brand for the future. So naming your business is a vital factor. First of all, you need to check the domain is available or not, for your business name, if the domain is already occupied think of another name that is available for the domain name because the domain name is your website name. So be serious and plan intelligently selecting your business name as your future brand.

Build Your Business as Your Legal Asset:

Establishing a legal business is a strong asset for you as no one will be able to deduct you from your business or vanish your business unless you close this willingly, and even, this business will remain after your death for the future generation. This is why a legal business is a strong asset.

For legalizing your pharmacy business you have to go through some rules as follows:

Permission from Bangladesh Pharmacy Council

At the very beginning as you thought about the pharmacy business you must have to get permission from Bangladesh Pharmacy Council. To obtain permission you have to do a minimum of a Six months course from the Bangladesh Pharmacy Council.

Need to have the drug license

Bank statement.

Treasury challan of the license fee submission. BDT 3000 TK. For under city corporation area and BDT 1500 TK for outside of city corporation area.

Shop ownership documents or shop rent documents.

A testimonial from another Pharmacist who already got the license.

Trade license copy (if your business is within the city area you must need to have a trade license): For a drug license, you have to apply to the Directorate General of Drug Administration (DGDA) in their form (form 7). Along with the form you have to also submit –

SOP’s from Directorate General of Drug Administration (DGDA) for the Online Pharmacy

For establishing an online pharmacy in Bangladesh you have to maintain the following SOP from DGDA:

Purpose

Confirming the delivery on time according to the consumer’s requisition.

Scope

Anyone who has a drug license anywhere in the country is eligible for providing this service.

Requirements for Starting Pharmacy Business in Bangladesh.

Permission is required from the Drug Administration to start an online pharmacy business.

It has to be directed by an “A” class registered pharmacist.

The pharmacy has to be within a minimum of 300 sq. Feet. Including one separate room for advising medicine.

Air-condition mandatory in the pharmacy premises along with a refrigerator for keeping required medicine within 2 – 8degree.

Need to have cold chain management for distributing hit-sensitive medicine.

Have to keep all the invoices safely and in the invoice must be mentioned the following: medicine brand name, generic name, batch no, the quantity of medicine, expire date, correct price management book no, dispenser name, designation, registration no, etc.

Keep record all data about medicine buying, storing and distributing,  patients history, all the legal and others papers, internal and external audit documents, need to have sop for the medicine gathering and distributing, have to inform drug administration about the adverse feedback of medicine and Adverse Event Following Immunization

Have to keep the record of cash memo and the database including all the documents minimum for three years.

Have to ensure electric supply 24/7 even using the generator.

Ensure the internet 24/7 at the pharmacy premises.

Only this service can be done against the prescription over the internet or MMS forwarded by the consumers only for the OTC medicine listed by the government.

Medicine has to be delivered against the prescription-only by the registered doctor.

In the prescription has to be mentioned the Doctor’s name, title, registration number, mobile number, date, contact address, and of course the serial number.

The prescription must have an auto-generated number.

Need to have a prescription monitoring program.

According to consumers need other medicine also can be supplied besides OTG medicine.

Has to be access permission for the drug administration to the pharmacy database.

For antibiotic medicine full course has to be supplied.

How online pharmacy works:

At the very beginning of this article to describe what online pharmacy is, you got a brief idea about how it works. Mainly online pharmacy or online medicine store works through the internet.

After getting a prescription from a doctor you need to login to online pharmacies through a browser or apps and you will get there an option to upload your prescription.

Once they got your prescription will contact you immediately to confirm the medicine and after your confirmation and payment through their required medium you will get the payment confirmation and within their fixed schedule they will send the medicine to your confirmed address.

This is a short brief of the general procedure of how online pharmacy in Bangladesh works or interact with their customers.

Now let’s try to fly into the details of how online pharmacies or online medicine stores work:

Online pharmacy is the same one available in your locality but considering infrastructure and work procedures are different, it’s digitized.

Operations of Online Pharmacy

To operate an online pharmacy smoothly more people needed to serve different types of jobs.

The purchasing system is similar for both online and offline pharmacies. All pharmacies purchase maximum medicine from the pharmaceuticals and some are imported. Let’s see how online pharmacies deal with customers.

First, when a customer uploads a prescription it goes to the customer care and is forwarded to the pharmacist.

The pharmacist checks the prescription carefully and informs customer care all medicine is available or not and also if anything needs to discuss with the customer.

Getting advice from pharmacist customer care contact with the customer and discuss all the needs to confirm the order. Once the customer confirms, they forward it to a pharmacist to prepare the order and ask the customer to make the payment.

After confirming the order customer make the payment and gets confirmation with the delivery schedule and waits for the medicine.

At the pharmacy end after getting payment accounts to confirm to pharmacist and pharmacist forwarded the parcel to dispatch of section.

Dispatch section to send the parcel accordingly to the customer’s confirmed address within the scheduled time duration.

This is the way how the online pharmacy in Bangladesh or the online medicine store in Bangladesh completes their task.

Opportunities in the online pharmacy business:

As medicine is a lifesaving product its demand will never go down. So far we are moving forward, we are getting robotic and destroying our neutrality especially in developing countries like Bangladesh. For that reason, we are getting sicker and attacked by various diseases.

The current situation for the Covid-19 pandemic sets huge opportunities for pharmacy business and especially for e-pharmacy or online pharmacy in Bangladesh. Now people are avoiding to go outside home and here is a great opportunity if you can deliver your product at home in the customer’s hand.

Opportunities in Bangladesh for Online Medicine Stores

The economy of Bangladesh has improved a lot which generates more income for the population. As a result according to the BTRC end March 2019 report almost 159.780 million mobile subscribers whereas the total population is 161.4 million. That means almost everyone is using mobile and among them, 103.253 million people use the internet according to the latest data from BTRC and most of the users are using smartphones in the 3G or 4G enabled areas. Which is massive and what happened, every aspect of life leading is influenced by the internet somehow. Whether they buy clothes, groceries, daily necessary equipment’s anything even bus, train, or launch tickets, they like to buy from the online store.  So this is high time to establish an online pharmacy or online medicine store in Bangladesh as medicine is the part and parcel of our daily life.

Recently online pharmacy business starting to grow in Bangladesh and it’s very minimal. So it’s the perfect time to react and establish an online pharmacy in Bangladesh and it will be easier for you to take over the position to customers’ minds as the competition is still not so high.

Now, men or women, peoples are so much busy in cities life and online pharmacy will be a great relief for them. They will be able to buy medicine from an online medicine store at any time from any place and that is a great opportunity for both ends to develop this online pharmacy business.

As an Entrepreneur You Should Remember

Another vital issue is pricing, here in Bangladesh people especially in cities, are very price-sensitive, and diseases also at a high rate, so this is a huge opportunity if you can offer medicine at a lower price and deliver to consumer’s door that will encourage the huge amount of people to buy medicine from online medicine store.

There are some special medicines for the sensitive issues of both men and women that they feel shy to disclose to a local pharmacy or outsider face to face and that is the opportunity for the online pharmacies or online medicine shops to grow their business. Here at an online pharmacy, consumers can easily and openly discuss their sensitive issues and buy special medicine which will hugely help the consumers.

Now in Bangladesh OTC medicine coming to be a high-demandable online product. For buying the OTC medicine consumer doesn’t require any prescription.  So this is a big opportunity to establish the OTC medicine business here in the online pharmacy in Bangladesh.

Social media is now playing a huge role as an advertising platform because every internet user of our country uses social media in Bangladesh. None can be found who uses the internet but does not have a Facebook ID and that is the encouraging and big hope for establishing a newly growing online business like an online pharmacy in Bangladesh.

Not only medicine is the only item for the online pharmacy business there are lots of things that can be included in your online medicine shop which will help a lot to grow your business within a short time. It’s a huge relief for consumers if they can buy their daily necessary things with a single click under one shade along with the medicine.

You can buy daily products and other necessary items from another shop but to buy the medicine you have to visit an online medicine shop. As you had to visit a medicine shop it’s better and time-saving to have other daily necessary items along with the medicine in the online pharmacy.

Examples

Here are some examples like to share:

Babies Item

In this busy life, it will get quite a relief for consumers if they can buy necessary products for their kids in one click along with the medicine like a diaper, feeder, nipple, baby food, wet wipes, babies lotion, and many others.

Other Daily Necessaries

Online pharmacy in Bangladesh can be your favorite online shop for your daily needs together with medicine. Here you can find the daily necessaries like Paste, Brushes, Antiseptic soap, hand sanitizer, hand washes, mask, tissue, sanitary napkin, anti-mosquito paste or machine,  blood pressure monitor, diabetic measuring machine, Oxy meter, Nebulizing machine, weight measuring machine, cotton but, toothpick, tongue cleaner, and so many.

Herbal Product

You can easily sell Herbal products without any hesitation as to sell herbal products no need for any prescription. In Bangladesh, people use herbal products regularly in high volume. Lots of herbal products are available in Bangladesh like – RoohAfza, Singkara, Shafiand many others.

Skin Care and Bioderma Products:

In your online pharmacy, you can easily do a huge business with skincare and Bio-derma products as their huge demandable item, especially for women.

Telemedicine Services

Now after the Corona revolution telemedicine has turned out a high demandable online service. While every person is scared to go outside at home even having serious suffering, telemedicine appears as a dream service to them. It’s a huge help for society. This has opened the door to help society along with stepping up your business.

Medicine Service at Hospital

Medicine becomes an emergency and high-demanding product for our life, especially when found shortage in the hospital while your relative is suffering seriously lying in the bed. This is the service where online pharmacies deliver urgent medicine to the hospitals as on-demand. Of course, it’s a business but it’s a social help also.

Home Diagnostic Service

It’s a huge appreciable and so helpful service to society, especially in this pandemic situation. Many people in society suffer lying in the home bed but are unable to go to the local diagnostic center due to manpower problems or so many problems. The home diagnostic service helps people a lot as they easily get their tastes lying in-home bed without moving a single step. So community growing big as day passing to get this service which opens a huge opportunity for online pharmacy in Bangladesh.

Who can accept this opportunity?

If you want to do something like entrepreneurship or e-commerce business or any online or offline business first of all you need to confidently understand what you going to do. From our childhood, we heard a word from elders “Think before the done.” So always think and analyze carefully before starting any business or anything to get success.

To do the online pharmacy business in Bangladesh you need to do lots of studies, analysis, and many things which already described at the beginning of this article.

So if you think about the online pharmacy business go through every corner of this article and also search google and study lots of data to form an online pharmacy in Bangladesh or online medicine shop in Bangladesh then you will realize easily who is fit to accept this opportunity to establish an online pharmacy in Bangladesh.

Risk factors in the online pharmacy business:

Every business has risks. Where there is a big risk, a big opportunity also lies behind the risk. If you walk carefully you can cut down the obstacles from your roadmap.

In the online pharmacy business, a big risk factor is a lack of beliefs. People always feel the lacking of face-to-face discussion which produces a lack of beliefs. Consumers are always scared about whether a registered doctor or pharmacist is working there or not. Also fear works in some cases where had to pay first before getting delivery.

In many cases, the time duration is a fact as a disadvantage of online medicine shop because suddenly you need the medicine immediately within one or half an hour but always it’s not possible to get medicine within this time due to their tough schedule though online pharmacy as especial and emergency delivery opportunity.

In many cases privacy becomes a lacking of online pharmacy, many consumers think like that though online pharmacy always ensures to keep concealing customers’ privacy.

Barrier in Online Medicine Store Business in Bangladesh

As this is an online business it’s fully dependable on electricity and internet services. It’s definitely a risk factor but all online pharmacies are asked to keep the electric supply continuous 24/7 in a week using the generator as backup and also asked to keep continue the internet supply intact 24/7 so that no interruption occurs for relating the consumers.

Another barrier for online medicine stores, not only this, for every online business is a user-friendly website or apps. If consumers feel uncomfortably using the website that will impact them very badly and the customer will be reduced dramatically. So this has to be taken care of carefully so that after visiting the website peoples convert to a customer.

Recommendation:

The opportunity for online pharmacy in Bangladesh is huge. I would like to say now in Bangladesh e-commerce business is booming but e-pharmacy or online pharmacy is still under the developing stage. Rare pharmacies have made their online presence so this sector has huge potential to grow big. My recommendation to the newcomers who are interested in the huge growing online sector, prepare yourself properly, collect proper data, do analysis and if you feel yourself fit for this online pharmacy business in Bangladesh perspective, don’t agitate, start now and step forward in the strict mindset to reach towards the targeted goal.

End words:

I have tried to explore the potential of online pharmacy in Bangladesh throughout this article to inspire our newcomers who are interested to be successful entrepreneurs in the future. In the developing country like Bangladesh, having a huge number of internet users, most of those are already involved much other e-commerce businesses as sellers or buyers, where the government emphasizing the digitalization follows Digital Bangladesh, on the other hand, peoples are affecting especially in cities in several diseases, the concept of e-pharmacy or online pharmacy is highly appreciable and adaptable and can be one of the most successful business in future as the e-commerce and other online sectors are lightning brightly.

In many data analyses, it is found that people, especially in cities like to have online shopping due to their massy life, working people, price, home delivery, convenience, payment options, privacy, and many other variables of life. This intention of online shopping is the heart and inspiration for the online pharmacy business to grow up. If proper planning works behind establishing an online pharmacy, this will get huge success in the long run. Anyway, there are some obstacles that try to influence people’s online buying intensity negatively but if the right people do the right plan for establishing the online pharmacy in Bangladesh those obstacles will go behind and the light of success will appear boldly.

Final Sentence

Finally, the world economy is going under huge pressure while the medicine business booming highly even in this pandemic situation by Covid-19. As medicine is we must have the life-leading thing and diseases are outbursting at a higher rate here in Bangladesh demand of medicine shops and especially online pharmacies in Bangladesh will boom hugely near the future and that’s for sure.

So don’t be hesitate, think in a cool head, and start today to prepare everything step by step for establishing an online pharmacy in Bangladesh, don’t worry, success will be gained in the long run surely.