How to Develop Successful Online Pharmacy App: Establish the Sale of Medicines Through E-commerce

Although the pandemic situation in the world got better a few months ago, the coronavirus left a great impact on the whole healthcare system. According to Statista, approximately 215 countries worldwide have been affected by the COVID-19. The virus is still at very high rates, so many countries reintroduced lockdown to slow its spread. Only on August 19, 2021, the outbreak of coronavirus had spread to six continents with 4.4 million death cases. 

Therefore, the improvement of the healthcare industry becomes an urgent problem. People need something convenient, contact-free, and efficient to recover from the pandemic. This is why now is the best time to create an online pharmacy app to ease the process for both patients and healthcare organizations. For investors, it could be a smart decision to earn money, bring a positive impact on this ecosystem and fix the main challenges. In this article, we want to guide you through the main questions of pharmacy app development. But first, reach us out to get more detailed information and estimate your project. Let’s start.

What Features are Gaining Popularity in the E-pharmacy Platform to Gain a Competitive?

Statistics show that modern-day customers prefer purchasing prescription medicines online using mobile apps. With the global lockdown, new opportunities digital solutions offer, and the presence of mobile phones in every home, the rocketed popularity of telehealth products is not surprising.

Below we are going to explain the advantages of an online pharmacy app and what features are responsible for success on the market. 

In-app Consultation

While people tend to use their phones absolutely for everything, the healthcare ecosystem should also be implemented with this feature. This will allow patients to chat directly with pharmacies, customer support, and even healthcare providers within the app. It could greatly ease searching for needed medicines and boost customer loyalty, as only a few apps have the same opportunity.

Pharmacy Locator 

Not necessary, but a really competitive feature you can consider for building an online pharmacy application. Giving users a chance to find nearby pharmacies through the app’s locator will differentiate your platform from all the rest and gain interest among many customers. This provides ultimate convenience and flexible choice for patients in their actions.

Multi-Language Support

This feature should be included in any pharmacy mobile app development that wants to expand the product to the world level. While most apps are oriented to specific regions and offer only English-speaking customer support, your multi-language team can make your platform universal, easy to use for international users, and show your dedication to every person entering the app.

Smart Search

This is a go-to feature you can include in e-pharmacy application development, as it significantly eases the search process and gains trust in the platform. By using smart search, users can quickly check and acquire information from nearby pharmacies and healthcare centers. In addition, by only writing the brand name of preferred medicines, they will come up with all needed results without mess and misunderstandings. Give your patients what they were looking for.

Book Lab Services

Depending on what problem your app will solve, you can add an opportunity to book lab services online. Due to COVID-19, this feature will be a great way to boost customer loyalty and enable bookings for various tests and diagnostic check-ups. Convenience is always on-demand as no one wants to wait in line to book tests or to wait for free time for weeks.

Delivery and/or pickup options

When thinking about how to make a pharmacy app, consider whether your users will have options to order delivery. Most apps offer only pick-up options, which is not a go-to option during the lockdown. So try to provide patients with a choice and allow them to order medications to be delivered to their door.

Order repeating

People struggling with chronic disease will be pleased to have constant support for their well-being. Therefore, they should have an opportunity to repeat the order from the user’s story with one click. This could speed up the ordering process and increase the retention rate. 

Benefits of Having Online Pharmacy Application

#1. Handy marketing and promotion tool

Talking about the benefits of online pharmacy application, innovative marketing is one of the main advantages you get with this platform. This allows you to boost advertising for your own pharmacy. Additionally, it will be much easier for you to figure out what customers enjoy about your app and what they don’t use when it comes to your pharmacy.

#2. Attract more customers

If you are a pharmacy owner, the app will give you a chance to communicate with your prospective and real customers directly. In contrast to physical stores, you won’t need to struggle with meeting their needs and satisfying desires. You will become closer to every user by always being near them. Features like push notifications and discounts will attract more customers, as you will see a clear picture of the target audience and always remind yourself in a friendly manner. 

#3. Overcome competitors 

A huge and worthy reason to create an e-pharmacy application is a perfect way to overcome all competitors and get out of the crowd. By implementing the features we mentioned above and going the extra mile, you will be a more appealing option among all the rest. Being in touch with users 24/7, offering new drugs, and providing convenience within an app is a go-to way to stay on-demand regardless of the healthcare situation. 

#4. Online sales of medicines

When your app offers not only stock but also a chance to buy medicine online and order them to be delivered, it benefits both pharmacy owners and users. This is mainly because

your clients would be able to get any medicine anytime and wherever they want. While this is attractive in lockdown facilities, you increase the number of sales and grow your revenue every day. 

Reach out to us for crafting a user-centric app that is worth a thousand downloads!

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Features That Need to be Developed in the E-pharmacy App

Since we discussed features that will make your app on-demand, it is time to get deeper into what you should focus on during the development process. Below we list must-have features any online pharmacy app should have. 

Easy Register/login – Feature # 1

This is the first page users will see when entering your app. This is why it is vital to make sure they can easily register or log in with social media accounts, via email, telephone number, or other ways popular in your country. 

Search Option – Feature # 2

While search is a fundamental feature that should undoubtedly be integrated into your app, it is recommended to make it as simple as possible. For instance, allow users to apply filters. This could be medicine only for mental health, for gastroenteric diseases, or for cancer patients.

Medicine Information – Feature # 3

In order to provide an on-demand app, you should be ready to develop a well-thought-out platform that will give clients access to all vital information about chosen medicine. These include manufacturer prices, availability to purchase, restock news, all details, side effects, and other data should be easily seen.

Alerts/Push notifications – Feature # 4

This feature helps patients stay informed about any news going on within your app. This not only attracts customer’s attention but also provides them with needle reminders about medicine uptake, which is vital for every patient.

Payment options – Feature # 5

Any app should go with payment options. You can start with looking for the most popular ways people pay online in your country and choose whether it be by credit card online, by Paypal, or by cash directly to the courier. 

The Cost of Development Online Pharmacy App 

Although there is a rough guideline on the cost of pharmacy app development, many factors can affect the final price and the following are most important:

1. Chosen company 

The full cost of the development of such apps can be much lower when you hire a reputable company. Since they have relevant experience and can handle all the aspects required for the industry, you won’t need to overpay for extra hours or for fixing bugs every time.  

2. Location 

The second factor that affects the price of developing an app is the location of specialists for the project. Online pharmacy apps need a project manager, telemedicine app developers, QA testers, designers, and more. So when you choose to find every team member rather than hire a company, make sure they are in the same country and have approximately one fixed price for an hour.

3. Time given

Depending on what period of time you want the team to develop an app, the price can significantly change. As a rule, such digital solutions can be crafted within 5-6 months. So if you want them to finish within 2-3 months, be ready to pay for such deadlines and hire twice more developers. 

As we now know what can affect the cost, let’s talk about the average price of pharmacy app development. Considering only based on features and basic technology stack, the cost to build online medicine application will be between $10,000 and $50,000. 

Choose Interexy Your Trusted E-pharmacy Application Development Partner

If you want to start an online pharmacy app, you will need to consider many things we mentioned above. However, as you can see, we listed all vital points for you to go through the process easily and hassle-free. We will now show how our Interexy team developed a mHealth application that has already gained interest among millions of users.

Interexy is a medical mobile app development company that highly values every client. We always strive to support any idea and can create a top-notch application from scratch, like with MedKitDoc. Our team is made up of high-skilled professionals that then create a perfect niche-down team with relevant background and expertise in any industry. 

MedKitDoc’s founders came to us with only a concept in mind. We quickly led them through the onboarding process and got the pain points. The application we produced enables physicians to diagnose over 49 diseases than through default telemedicine products. 

The app also enables physicians with real-time health data from connected medical devices and doubles the capabilities of telemedicine. Patients get an opportunity to easily connect with their doctor, get medicines, track their health condition and treatment plans within one app.

We faced the main challenge with the UX/Ui design, as we focused on simplicity and usability, but the MedKitDoc is heavily hardware-integrated. Due to our team’s expertise in mHealth solutions, we carefully went through the most challenging parts of the product iteratively, creating a range of prototypes to finalize the UX and user interface design part to fit the product’s objectives and users’ expectations. Still not sure how to develop an online pharmacy app? Contact our manager, and we will help you with any ideas.  

FAQs

• How does an online pharmacy app work?

When you think about how to build e-pharmacy app, you need to understand the way it works. Using such apps, users can search and order medicines while also having them delivered. It could be a pharmacy marketplace where many drug stores offer their products or a branded online app store that is created by one company offering their medications.  

• Can I create an e-pharmacy application where I can buy drugs without prescription?

The short answer is no. All pharmacy apps should obtain a license so they can sell prescription medications. This is a vital criteria for mHealth applications as certain rules should be followed.

• What is the average income of people who have created an e-pharmacy platform? 

There is no average answer as income depends on many factors, including location, number of monetization ways you include into your app, and features implemented. Reach us out if you want to learn more about it.