- More and more are dabbling in e-commerce or electronic commerce for all the benefits they obtain, although it does not mean that it is the end of physical businesses.
- At the beginning of this 2023, Amazon presented its RxPass membership program to be able to purchase medicines with home delivery.
- In Mexico, 21% of the population has bought medicines in digital pharmacies.
One of the multiple consequences of the pandemic was the acceleration of digitization. Due to the population’s fear of exposing themselves to contagion, there were millions of people who remained inside their homes with as little contact as possible. Although regardless of the circumstances there are some products that cannot be done without. As a consequence, the digital pharmacies were the main winners.
In this vein, since the explosion of the Internet there has been a change in the way of acquiring products. Before, everything was face-to-face and implied the transfer of people to the businesses to make their purchases.
On the other hand, now everything is different because there is already the option of doing it remotely. Now everything is just a click away because you don’t even need to go out into the open.
Physical Vs Digital Pharmacies
With this in mind, we now live the golden age of digital pharmacies. More and more are dabbling in e-commerce or electronic commerce for all the benefits they obtain, although it does not mean that it is the end of physical businesses.
The purchase of medicines in online pharmacies has become popular in recent years. However, according to data from the macro survey Statista Consumer Insightsit seems that the majority still prefers to go to a physical pharmacy to buy drugs.
This is the case of 93% of the people surveyed in Spain, who claim to have bought medicines at a local pharmacy in the last 12 months. This contrasts with the 13% who have been customers of an online pharmacy during the same period. This preference for offline pharmacies is also observed in other European countries such as Italy (90%), France (88%), Germany (80%) and the United Kingdom (72%), although the German case stands out, since almost four out of every ten German interviewees claim to have purchased medicines in online pharmacies.
In the American continent, medicines are also mostly purchased in physical pharmacies. 92% of Argentines do it, compared to 17% who choose to get them online. In Canada, the proportion of respondents who have decided to buy from online pharmacies in the last year barely reaches 9%.
With respect to Mexico, the scenario is quite similar. 86% of the population prefers physical establishments, compared to 21% who buy medicines in digital pharmacies.
Amazon ventures into the sale of medicines online
For its part, this global phenomenon has caused more and more technology companies to venture into the sale of medicines over the Internet. A clear example is Amazon’s RxPass service.
This program was launched at the beginning of 2023 and is exclusive to users who have Prime membership. They are the people who have access to the multimedia platform with the company’s series and movies and can also buy products without shipping costs. If they now pay an additional five dollars a month then they will be able to receive the benefits of this new project.
The biggest incentive is that they can choose from a catalog of just over 40 generic drugs that work against the most common diseases. They can freely select the ones they want and they will also receive them directly at their home without extra charges.
Also read:
RxPass, Amazon’s new monthly subscription for the purchase of medicines
Careful! These 7 digital pharmacies offer irregular medications according to Cofepris
The countries that register the most sales of digital pharmacies