On April 7, the world-renowned Boston Consulting Group (BCG) released the report "Pharmaceutical e-commerce in the ascendant, six major trends in future development", making a prediction for the future development of my country's pharmaceutical e-commerce. The report is the basic opinion formed by BGC through surveys of 85 pharmaceutical retail e-commerce companies, more than 300 consumers, and organized seminars to conduct in-depth research on various types of companies. The report believes that my country's pharmaceutical e-commerce will continue to grow rapidly, the traditional drug purchase model is being changed, and the time is right for industrial transformation. The future development of pharmaceutical e-commerce opportunities lies in model innovation and service upgrades.

Lots of opportunities, face up to the challenge

In recent years, my country's pharmaceutical e-commerce has developed rapidly. Moreover, since my country's pharmaceutical retail accounts for only 20% of the pharmaceutical market, pharmaceutical e-commerce accounts for only 30% of the pharmaceutical retail, which is far lower than the US market. Therefore, my country's pharmaceutical e-commerce has great potential for development.

In recent years, BCG has focused on the tracking research of my country's digital healthcare and medical e-commerce. Huang Peijie, chairman of BCG Greater China, global senior partner and managing director, said that as the Chinese government sends a signal to gradually liberalize prescription drug e-commerce, pharmaceutical e-commerce will show explosive growth in the future.

The report believes that there are three main driving forces for the development of pharmaceutical e-commerce: First, last year, China focused on promoting the reform of separation of medicines and achieved breakthroughs, indicating that the country is concerned about the proportion of medicines in hospitals, medical insurance control fees, etc., and encourage more pharmaceutical retail development , Provides the development basis for pharmaceutical e-commerce; second, in recent years, pharmaceutical e-commerce has explored a variety of new models, such as B2B, B2C, O2O, etc., and different pilots have been carried out in various regions, which will drive the growth of the pharmaceutical e-commerce market and Gradually mature; thirdly, the drug regulatory environment is becoming increasingly favorable, and online sales of prescription drugs are the general trend, especially chronic disease drugs and self-paid drugs will gradually be liberalized. With the gradual improvement of supporting policies, it will bring more growth to the entire pharmaceutical e-commerce opportunity.

"Although there are many opportunities for pharmaceutical e-commerce, the challenges are also obvious." Xia Xiaoyan, global partner and managing director of BCG, said that for pharmaceutical e-commerce, different challenges are faced in the fields of non-prescription drugs, health products and prescription drugs.

In terms of over-the-counter drugs, the current OTC e-commerce platform makes information very flat, and price competition is fierce, which greatly squeezes the profit margins of pharmacies and pharmaceutical companies. In addition, consumers worry about the authenticity of medicines. For OTC drugs, the timeliness of delivery is also very important.

In terms of prescription drugs, the challenge first comes from the policy, that is, when will the online sales of prescription drugs be released; secondly, when will the medical insurance be covered, especially for chronic diseases. The current medical insurance system in China is very complicated, and the medical insurance standards vary from place to place. The third is the source of prescriptions, that is, how to obtain high-quality online prescriptions; the fourth is the lack of pharmacist talents in China, how can prescription drug e-commerce providers provide more professional pharmacist services.

"Survey shows that the current pharmaceutical e-commerce business believes that the biggest challenge for business is price competition, because B2C platforms can only sell OTC drugs. Under the situation of very transparent OTC drug information, price competition is very fierce; in addition, pharmaceutical e-commerce online and offline There is a lack of experience in category price management. Consumers’ concerns about buying drugs online are mainly concerned about the quality of the drugs, lack of professional medication guidance, inability to use medical insurance to pay, and need to get a prescription from the doctor.” Xia Xiaoyan said.

Six major trends in the future development of pharmaceutical e-commerce

The report shows that in 2014, my country's pharmaceutical e-commerce sales exceeded RMB 7 billion, and it is still growing rapidly in 2015. The report points out that my country's pharmaceutical e-commerce development will present six major trends in the future.

1. The development of medical e-commerce is a major benefit to the medical and pharmaceutical industries, and has a huge boost. It will promote the solution and improvement of some pain points in the current medical system in China, and bring about the transformation of the roles of different types of enterprises in the industry chain . In terms of efficiency, medical e-commerce can provide patients with more ways to buy, and can drive the process of separation of medicines. From the perspective of medical experience, repeated medical visits can be reduced, so that patients can get more services from prevention to treatment on the medical e-commerce platform. In terms of cost, e-commerce services compress circulation links, allowing patients to gain greater transparency and autonomy.

Pharmaceutical e-commerce will accelerate the transformation of enterprises in the industry chain. For manufacturers, they used to be production suppliers and academic knowledge propaganda and educators. In the future, they will use pharmaceutical e-commerce to open up more education and sales opportunities directly facing patients; for pharmaceutical distribution companies, the impact will be very serious. In the past, wholesale agency, logistics and distribution were indispensable links in the circulation of medicines. In the future, both online and offline will become channels for the circulation of medicines. If they are affected or embraced by opportunities, circulation companies must transform as soon as possible. For pharmaceutical retailers, the past It is a key link in drug sales, which controls patient resources. In the future, online sales platforms will expand the space for patients to choose. Retailers who can survive must have the ability to connect online and offline.

2. Prescription drugs and over-the-counter drugs will form different e-commerce business models, and future success requires differentiated competition.

Third, the e-commerce of over-the-counter drugs and health products mainly subverts the traditional offline retail model, and the development of prescription drug e-commerce must be closely integrated with Internet companies and traditional companies. For non-prescription drug e-commerce, traditional companies will be affected by the e-commerce model and need to develop online businesses and seek greater increments, such as self-operated online pharmacies and cooperation with third-party pharmaceutical e-commerce platforms. Prescription drug e-commerce companies such as Jointown and Shanghai Pharmaceuticals will use rich medical terminal resources, drug sales, distribution qualifications and familiarity with the uniqueness of drug sales, and work closely with Internet companies to form a win-win situation.

Fourth, the concentration of pharmaceutical e-commerce in the future will be high, and companies that create closed-loop success will rise and establish a leading position. The BCG report pointed out that the elements of the future closed loop of medical e-commerce include: information self-diagnosis, medical guidance, medical treatment, drug purchase, and disease management. In the whole consultation process, the most important thing is to connect "medicine" and "medicine", so that a closed-loop company can gain a leading edge.

5. The development of medical e-commerce will promote the upgrading of medical service models. In the future, the pharmaceutical e-commerce platform will adopt self-operated or cooperate with pharmaceutical third-party logistics to provide logistics services with professional qualifications; enhance the utilization of human resources through e-commerce platform-style pharmaceutical services and cultivate more professional service capabilities.

6. Pharmaceutical e-commerce improves industry transparency and efficiency, which will benefit policy supervision. In the future, pharmaceutical e-commerce will improve the opacity of the transaction process caused by the multiple levels of the industrial chain and the scattered circulation and retail participants; reduce intermediate links, accelerate industry integration, and improve link efficiency; product quality, prescription information, transaction information, etc. are guaranteed The traceability of information is conducive to supervision.