Viewing the Development Mode of Pharmaceutical Retailing from the Low Frequency of Medical Treatment

For a long time, the medical field has been considered low frequency, mainly because diseases are sporadic and unpredictable
.
However, with the high incidence of chronic diseases, people with chronic diseases have become a major force for high-frequency medical services

In a pharmaceutical retail market that mainly meets low-frequency demand, in addition to measuring the incidence, income level and consumption preferences of the population that can be covered by the pharmacy or online, the key is how to increase the frequency and promote the actual arrival of users.
Rate and frequency of website visits
.
Due to the low-frequency nature of medicines, it can only be driven by other non-medicinal products, such as egg delivery and free blood pressure measurement that are common all over the country to win customers

However, attracting customers is only the first step.
It is impossible for real medicines to rely on diversion to generate unlimited sales growth.
After all, users need to have demand to buy, and the frequency of demand is very low.
The so-called buy-and-gift model is more suitable health products
.
Therefore, health care products, family planning supplies, and other daily necessities (such as anti-epidemic supplies) are the main forces driving pharmaceutical retail

The proportion of medical insurance has dropped significantly.
The epidemic has driven the sales of epidemic prevention materials.
There is also a reason for the strengthening of medical insurance supervision.
Products such as health care products that can be stolen from medical insurance can no longer be illegally operated
.
Therefore, in 2020, the expenditure of medical insurance accounts in pharmacies will increase by 2%, which is a very significant drop from the 23% growth rate in 2019

With the deepening of the medical reform, especially the medical insurance outpatient co-ordination and individual account reform, due to the reduction of the individual account amount, the proportion of medical insurance in retail pharmacies will continue to decline
.
In such a market situation, pharmacies need to find their core competitiveness

Japanese pharmacies are divided into prescription pharmacies and drugstores.
Prescription pharmacies are all hospital-side stores and highly depend on the relationship with the hospital.
The 2B capability of pharmacies is far greater than the 2C capability
.
Because hospitals are highly dispersed, it is very challenging to quickly open multiple hospitals in a region or open multiple hospitals across regions, which leads to the fragmentation of the entire market, and it is difficult to develop a highly concentrated development model

Due to the stagnation of the prescription drug market, how to transform has become the key to the development of prescription dispensing pharmacies
.
Judging from the current market situation, most prescription pharmacies have not transformed into pharmacies that expand non-pharmaceutical categories.

However, drugstores, on the other hand, use their own traffic to enter the retail of prescription drugs
.
Unlike prescription pharmacies, Japanese drugstores not only sell drugs, but also other non-drugs.

As far as the prescription drug business is concerned, this market mainly relies on the relationship with hospitals and clinics to expand, so they are all opened on the side of medical institutions
.
In terms of depth, the advantages of pharmacies are not as good as professional prescription pharmacies.
However, because Japan’s prescriptions are more from basic clinics than hospitals, pharmacies attract customers by providing more competitive generic drugs.
This is a bonus to the dispensing fee granted by the government due to the high replacement rate of generic drugs
.
Therefore, in recent years, the prescription drug business of Welcia and Heyu has achieved considerable growth, and the scale has squeezed into the top 10 professional prescription dispensing pharmacies
.

Therefore, from the perspective of the development trend of Japanese pharmacies, relying on low-frequency prescription drugs cannot drive high-frequency non-pharmaceutical sales.
On the contrary, it is possible to drive the sales of prescription pharmacies through the sales of other FMCG categories.
Of course, Integration must be based on its own large flow, otherwise the sales of prescription drugs driven by this will not be very high
.

Therefore, returning to the Chinese market, it is currently relying on OTC to drive the sales of non-pharmaceuticals.
In the early stage, it mainly relied on stealing medical insurance and inducing the elderly to buy health products to maintain growth
.
Under such a model, even if part of the prescription is outflowed, due to the low frequency attribute, it cannot compensate for the decrease in sales caused by the decrease in passenger flow caused by the shrinking of personal accounts
.
Moreover, with the reduction of personal account funds, the passenger flow of retail pharmacies will face a fundamental reversal, because the personal accounts of the elderly will no longer grow every year, and they will return to hospitals and community medical institutions
.
If retail pharmacies cannot turn to young and middle-aged customers, they will face a continued decline in passenger flow
.

Of course, for all categories of e-commerce companies, its branches in pharmaceutical e-commerce rely on high-frequency bands to move low-frequency, and this model is developing for young and middle-aged people
.
However, the online drugstore model is more similar to the Japanese drugstore model.
Although it can also enter the field of prescription drug sales, in view of the low possibility of prescription outflow in China, the market size is still relatively limited.
If this is a key area, it is obviously based on a mistake Above expectations
.

Therefore, the development of China's pharmaceutical retail market must be based on a reasonable expectation.
Each pharmacy needs to transform according to its own capabilities, but how to shift from being geared towards the elderly to gearing towards middle-aged and young people, and how to shift from stealing medical insurance and inducing consumption It will be critical to shift the model to a professional, fashionable and convenient model
.