The demand for medicine is growing with the rise of the aging population. An on-demand pharmacy app has leveraged many patients to buy medications in the comfort of their homes.
Chemists or pharmacists are emerging as a savior to let patients with severe illnesses buy medicine without letting them visit stores. According to the global spending on medicine survey, about 1.27 trillion U.S. dollars had already been spent on buying medicines in 2020 globally and is expected to expand by 1.6 billion in 2025.
If you are a pharmacist, it is the right time to invest in pharmacy app development as the future of pharmacy lies on the internet. The reason for this shift was due to restrictions during the COVID-19 outbreak.
Let’s discuss some aspects of pharmaceutical app development to get a convenient, simple, and quality product.
What is a Pharmacy App?
Talking about today’s scenario, people prefer the online world, work from home, online consultation, meetings, shopping, etc are a new normal. And how about buying medicines online or checking the availability of required medicine at your nearby store. The pharmacy app development company will help you offer a solution to give access to your store online to your customers around the clock.
You may look for a development company if you have your own pharmacy business; if not, then you can play the role of intermediator by establishing a contract with other pharmacies. In this way, you sell medications from different pharmacies from a single app.
Benefits of developing a medicine delivery apps
Push Notification:
A pharmacy app has a scheduled notifications feature, which is best to have in an app as it lets users know about medicine restocking dates. Additionally, it reminds patients to take medicine on time daily.
Privacy:
This app allows privacy to users for ordering medicines.
No travel Cost:
Online delivery apps let customers save money rather than physically visiting brick-and-mortar stores.
Centralized Commodities Availability:
With this app, you can connect with big pharmacies without the assistance of any mediator.
Easy Onboarding:
Give access to social login to let customers enjoy hassle-free onboarding.
Connect Consumers With Local Pharmacies Stores:
You can create an interactive mobile platform for your customers, letting them order on-demand medicines from nearby stores instantly.
Information About Medications:
Customers can get medicine details by reading all the instructions.
Business Benefits of Custom Pharmacy Apps
Makes Process Easier:
The pharmacists are overloaded with reports, paperwork, and data operations responsibilities. And after app development, all can be automated with the help of an app and an admin panel, making the complex process easier.
Boosting Efficiency:
Having a digital solution for a business leads to increased efficiency. Developing pharmaceutical apps can scale up business and increase sales and brand recognition.
Expands Client Base:
Customer flow is the critical aspect influencing your pharmaceutical business growth. Pharma app development will help get more buyers with the help of various discounts, push notification features to attract more people, and profit.
Easing Customer Pains:
Having a pharma app makes people’s life easier, and they later become loyal buyers. People don’t need to wait in line and get the medical necessity at their doorstep.
Pharmacy Delivery App Features:
Every medication delivery app has useful features developed by mobile app development company that makes an application exceptional. So, let’s discuss four chemists, customer, admin, and courier panel features.
Customer App
Customer app features are for potential buyers who want to buy their medications online. And the customer panel will make the process easier for them as it comprises many different features.
Login/Registration:
Easily login/register option using phone number & password is what customers need today. So, it is best to simplify the process and allow customers to use the app with easy steps. Thus, enabling all the options email, social media, phone, Et. Cetera will impress your audiences.
⇒ Do not ask for too much information from them during the login/registration process. Let consumers know your app is precise and easily accessible.
⇒ You can also let the registration process option make the customer buy from you without any signup. This will further help those customers who don’t want you to save any information on servers. Giving more options to customers makes you noble from competitors.
User Profile:
This feature lets a buyer make his profile by adding all the required information such as an address, payment details & allergies, prescription, and more. Registration can be optional.
Upload Prescriptions:
We cannot buy every medicine without a prescription. Thus, always give users the option to scan and upload images from the phone to let them purchase needed drugs. It can be done by gaining access to users’ device galleries for image upload.
Search Categories:
Search filters lets consumers expedite their search process. This filter allows users to search for the exact product by sorting the list of medicines by applying certain criteria such as price, brand, relevance, rating, alphabet, and category. And voice search eases customers who have a problem with filters or typing. Also, this feature enables users to locate nearby pharmacies.
Secure Payments Options:
Adding diverse payment options by integrating with third-party payment providers like Gpay, Phone Pay, Paytm, credit/debit card, crypto wallet, Amazon Pay, and cash on delivery for secure and seamless transactions. After selecting the desired payment option, allow customers to check order details such as an address and the product.
Order tracking:
The order tracking feature aids customers in tracking the confirmed and accepted status by the store to check the live status of their products. You can also let users see it on a map for complete clarity.
Multilingual feature:
This is the best way to connect with your audiences, as multilingual features allow buyers to access the app in their preferred language.
Chat:
Give access to your customers to get answers to their queries. Allow customer support via chat or call in an app, giving users the way to send direct messages, and attach files and images to customer support personnel to get resolution of their queries.
Artificial Intelligence:
Allow access to search images, voice commands, and order recommendations through AI tools.
Customer Review & Rating:
After receiving the order, the user gets the option to give reviews and ratings to the pharmacy store.
Compare Products:
With the comparison option, customers can compare two brands having similar compositions.
Refunds:
Medicine cannot be returned, but by mistake, if a pharmacy may deliver the wrong product or if the courier gets misplaced. In those conditions, a refund policy and customer support service.
Catalog:
With the catalog option users get the access to browse items, search for specific brands or products, sort products and apply filters, and read descriptions. To make it more customized, an app should look for similar products.
Add To Cart:
All the products that customers want to buy can be added to the cart before proceeding to checkout.
Admin Dashboard:
Admin dashboard is for businesses to check everything from inventory, database, logs to profits. Thus, it helps owners make better business decisions and has all the required features, such as reporting, analytics, etc., to provide pharma solutions.
Manage Supplies and Users:
This admin panel feature lets owners track received and pending orders.
Real-time Tracking:
The real-time tracking option helps track the vehicle in real-time with the help of the tracking module.
Analytics Reports:
With the help of artificial intelligence, owners of the app can get insights into the performance of the business and can improve the performance and functionality if required.
Inventory Management:
Owner gates real-time notifications about stock and date of expiry of products so that they can restock again.
Marketing Tools:
Admin can promote their products with the help of marketing tools and customize their campaigns according to requirements to sell more products & attract more customers. Also, these tools will help to make data-driven business decisions.
Report generation:
In the admin’s side of the pharma delivery service app, you can make reports to gather critical data, examine key metrics, and generate visual reports.
Manage Customers:
All the customers who have registered on an app will be accessed by the admin to make any changes if required.
Pharmacies/ Vendor Dashboard
The pharmacy side of the dashboard has many features to meet business needs. Further, the features will depend on the mobile app type and the audience it serves
Order Management:
The pharmacy’s dashboard allows you to manage order requests and processing. All the data remains confidential as per the data protection regulations like HIPAA.
Catalog management:
The pharmacy store owner has access to the catalog to make certain modifications if required, for example, if the pharmacy runs out of stock or if there is any alteration in price.
Notification:
Pharmacists get notifications when users order medicine through pop-ups, text messages, etc.
Prescriptions Access:
The prescriptions given by doctors are uploaded by patients in the app to let the pharmacist sell the drugs online.
Payment Information:
The pharmacist gets proper payment access to ensure that the amount paid is exactly the total without further details like card number as per the security of the user data.
Chat:
Chat features allow users to clarify doubts via chat and voice recordings to keep users up-to-date.
Review management:
Pharmacists can check all the reviews and ratings to get proper customer feedback as it further helps them improve their services and user experience.
Driver Panel:
The delivery panel made the courier service easier for the medical delivery boy. It consists of various features.
Profile:
The profile features let the driver enter the required details seamlessly required for the job. Also, in their profile, the courier guy can see the ratings, reviews, and order history of his delivered orders.
Delivery Status Input:
With these features, drives access delivery address, location, etc.
Push Notification:
Instant notification on the driver’s phone lets him proceed with new orders letting them deliver them on time.
Availability Status:
Agents can share their availability by showing an online/offline status.
Google Map:
With the help of Google Maps in the medicine delivery service app, drivers get the exact directions of a particular location for medicine delivery. Mobile App development company professionals may implement it in two ways, i.e. developing aroute management system with a map inside the app, which requires a bigger budget. The other way is 3rd-party API integration, a cheap and faster method.
Status changes:
The driver can edit the process at every delivery process as the driver updates the status to keep the customer updated
Availability:
Drivers have the option to set their availability according to their schedule of deliveries.
Technology Stack to develop Medicine Delivery App:
Based on the specified features & functionality, it is important to classify the technology stack used by an app development company to develop a pharma app.
You need to consider;
Native or Cross-platform app development
Data security & compliance
Budget & minimum viable product
Cloud storage capability
Mobile Programming Languages
iOS app using Swift
Android app using Kotlin
Back-end Technology
PHP
Web Frameworks
Laravel
Cloud Server Platforms
AWS
MySQL
Database
API Payment Gateways
GooglePay
ApplePay
Navigation
Google Maps
Google Places
Pharmacy App Monetization Ways:
After app development, the next question is its monetization.
Fees:
Charge a particular amount from vendors to let them sell products from your app.
Subscription:
For customers who have taken a subscription, you as a business can offer free delivery and additional discounts on medicines.
Ads:
Placing ads in your app is another way to generate revenue for your business.
Conclusion:
Businesses are going digital these days, and the pharma business is also growing by leveraging new business
opportunities. Waiting in a long queue to purchase medicine is not what consumers want; pharma apps are becoming popular for accessing healthcare services.
It’s the right time to choose the app type and its features. Converse with the mobile app development team to discuss your app’s mobile app or cross-platform app development requirements. Now you must have a lot of understanding about developing an on-demand medical delivery app. Determine and decide is it worth it for your business?
