Retail Pharmacies Under Epidemic Situation: Epidemic Prevention Sentinel Role Examination Industry O2O Change Acceleration

"Hello, you have to pass the temperature test before you enter." Ms. Liang (a pseudonym) stopped the customer who had just entered the pharmacy, and picked up his ear warming gun skillfully to help the client take his temperature. Mrs Liang has run a drugstore in the Pearl River Delta region, and it is one of the most important tasks for her to take care of the client's temperature at the door of the pharmacy.

This year, it is a little special for the retail chain pharmacist, such as Ms. Liang. The outbreak of the outbreak has also led them to think deeply about their positioning and operation and management mode. According to the State Food and Drug Administration's statistics in 2019, the total number of retail pharmacies in China has exceeded 48, of which nearly half are single drugstores.

On the other hand, recently, the State Administration of Market Supervision issued the typical case of "joint doubles action" by the General Administration of market supervision (the third batch). A large number of drugstores have been investigated and dealt with as a result of the sale of protective clothing such as masks.

"Sentinel" for epidemic prevention fronts

As a retail terminal for selling protective equipment and medicines, the major drugstores have also become the "sentinel" at the forefront of combating the epidemic.

As early as January 25th, more than 70 pharmaceutical retail enterprises jointly published the proposal for a part of China's pharmaceutical retail industry to deal with the new pneumonia epidemic in Wuhan, calling on practitioners in the pharmaceutical retail industry to ensure the supply of drugs, stabilize the price of drugs, Jian Shougang and undertake scientific propaganda work during the epidemic period, and cooperate with relevant departments to carry out epidemic prevention work.

According to a report by the economic news reporter twenty-first Century, the drug store has upgraded its protective measures. Apart from sending someone to watch the temperature at the door, it also calls on customers and staff to keep their distance as far as possible. In accordance with the requirements of the relevant departments of the District, pharmacies must strictly register and ask for medical history to buy antipyretic drugs.

In the epidemic, not only prescription drugs, but also sales of OTC drugs are strictly controlled, which is an unprecedented regulatory situation for traditional drugstores.

Since the outbreak of the outbreak, in order to strengthen the management of fever and cough patients, Heilongjiang, Chongqing, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Sichuan, Hunan, Liaoning, Tianjin and other provinces have launched the "fever drugs real name registration" measures. Some areas such as Liuzhou, Nanjing, Ningbo, and the whole province have been "relentless" to suspend sales of cold medicine, cough medicine and antipyretic drugs. 。

Due to the need of epidemic prevention and control, drugstores have become a "sentinel" in the grass-roots epidemic prevention network to a certain extent. They can report timely purchase of antipyretic drugs, cough medicines and cold medicines through pharmacies, effectively supervise and urge patients with fever and cough to seek medical treatment reasonably, prevent misdiagnosis and concealment, and control the spread and spread of the epidemic.

Liao Xinbo, an inspector of the Guangdong Provincial Health Planning Commission, said that retail pharmacies, especially community pharmacies, played an important role during the epidemic. On the one hand, retail pharmacies adhere to business, ensure supply, strengthen prevention and control of science popularization, reduce social panic and stabilize people's hearts; on the other hand, retail pharmacies can act as epidemic prevention and control posts, grasp the trend of epidemic development in time, and provide data support for the prevention and control departments.

However, the "one size fits all" moratorium on the sale of some drugs will inevitably reduce the sales volume of drugs and affect the sustainability of retail pharmacies.

According to the statistics of the sales of 13430 retail pharmacies across the country from December 1, 2019 to February 16, 2020, the sales of influenza drugs and cough drugs were increased in the short term after the disclosure of the epidemic information. However, in February 2nd, the sales of cold drugs, cough medicine and antipyretic drugs were temporarily suspended in some areas, and the sales volume of the three drugs decreased significantly. The number of orders is greatly reduced.

Li Wenjie, a public Limited by Share Ltd chain, said that after the outbreak of the epidemic, retail pharmacies played an important role in the timely fight against the epidemic based on the familiarity of drugs and protective materials and the channels, so that the whole society felt the strength and sense of existence of retail pharmacies.

He also admitted that the industry was not sufficiently prepared to cope with the epidemic, and the information exchange was not enough, and there was no resultant force. If the whole pharmaceutical retail industry can mobilize all of them, it will probably get higher recognition from society and the anti epidemic work will be more effective.

Li Wenjie suggested that after the outbreak, retail pharmacies should continue to maintain close ties with government departments, strengthen communication and do well in the extension of government related work to enhance the value of the industry. In the future, when the country is deepening medical reform and improving the construction of major epidemic prevention and control system, the Retail Pharmacist industry should take an active part in it.

Prevention and control to accelerate the pace of O2O trial

In addition to being a sentinel for epidemic prevention and protecting the supply of medical protective materials, retail pharmacies are also an important part of the final examination.

In the fight against the epidemic, some drugstores were also investigated for selling fake and shoddy masks. According to the announcement issued by the State General Administration of marketing, a large number of cases of selling and selling masks have been investigated. In addition to the sale of fake and inferior respirators, some pharmacies have been fined for raising the price of masks.

As the nearest retail terminal, the drugstore has also become the most vulnerable line for counterfeit and inferior products.

Take the case of selling fake and shoddy masks, which was detected by Tianxin sub Bureau of Changsha Public Security Bureau as an example. First of all, Li Moubing got a batch of fake "Piao" brand masks from Xinxiang directly at 0.32 yuan / price, then distributed the fake masks to Zhang garden for 0.5 yuan / price. Zhang Yuan also sold the mask to Liang and his associates Xie Mouhua at a price of 1.5 yuan per person. Later, Liang also sold the mask to the owner of the pharmacy of Yu Hong Chu Ren Tang, Changsha Tianxin District, at a price of 2 yuan / price.

Eventually, a total of 30 thousand fake masks, after up to five levels of distribution network, were sold to unsuspecting consumers through Ye Mouwen's drugstore. Another part was sold to consumers by Liang Mou and his partner Xie Hua Hua through roadside stalls.

Under this circumstance, how to better serve as a sentinel role in the battle front is more sensitive. However, with the increasing control efforts, the pace of drug transfer has accelerated.

"There are fewer people who actually buy drugs directly in the shops recently, but there are more people who buy drugs or make an appointment online through the US group and our public number." Ms. Liang told the economic news reporters in twenty-first Century that what is missing now is masks. The pharmacies also notify customers in advance on the public number to make an online booking. The reservation is successful, and then they are taken from the store by two-dimensional code. On the one hand, they avoid the looting. On the other hand, they also minimize the risk of personnel gathering and increase the risk of cross infection.

During the epidemic period, the idea of "staying indoors" is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. Some online services have ushered in the "barbaric growth" of spring. Compared with the deserted decline of the real pharmacies, the online pharmacies are booming, which indirectly accelerates the transformation process of traditional pharmacies online and offline.

Take Ding Ding fast drug as an example. In from January 20th to 28th, the daily order volume increased by more than 700% over the same period last year. The daily activity of App was 10 times higher than that of the same period.

According to Ping An Securities data, although the entity stores in drug retail still take the lead, in 2018, the sales volume of solid drugstores reached 382 billion yuan (22%), and online drugstores achieved sales of 9 billion 900 million yuan (1%). But in 2018, China's online drugstore market grew by 41%.

Earlier, insiders pointed out that after the epidemic, the online nationwide coverage and rapid volume of medical electronic business sales mode once again showed boundless vitality, while the entity stores fully explored the retail business of the line while exploring the online business mode to move towards the new retail format, which is also an inevitable trend of the development of the industry. Among them, focusing on online O2O operation, increasing service radius and service viscosity of customers, enriching and meeting the needs of multi-channel consumers, is also an indispensable part of the development of pharmaceutical retail enterprises under the current line.

In the context of the gradual expansion of the scale of regional drugstores into the dilemma of low growth, relying on the advantages of the medical electronic business mode to seek incremental space, exploring the cross regional medical services and opening up the empty white market with the advantages of medical logistics, medical professional services and medical retail professionals accumulated over the years, it has become one of the effective paths for pharmaceutical retail enterprises to break the "ceiling".

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