Prescription Delivery App Development: An Ultimate Guide for CEOs and Entrepreneurs

The COVID-19 pandemic messed up several sectors around the globe. But, few Pandemic-Proof Industries flourished even during this drastic wave of COVID-19, for example, healthcare.

The healthcare industry grew by leaps and bounds in the past few years and the reason is self-explanatory. People became more health-conscious during and post-pandemic and because of this trend, funding soared in the sector leading to innovation.

In this article, we are going to talk about the most important domain of the healthcare sector and that is the online pharmaceutical industry. So, if you are planning to do something in the field of online pharmacy or prescription delivery, this guide is for you.

So, read on and find answers to all your questions.

3 Reasons to Launch a Prescription Delivery App Right Now

The medicine industry was always in demand and the pandemic served as a catalyst to introduce a massive boom in this market. So, if you are planning to launch a prescription delivery solution or business in the market, now is the right time to do so. Here is why:

1. The Global ePharmacy Market is Expected to Reach $128.76 Billion by 2026

That’s a lot of potential. The market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 16.9% during the period between 2020 to 2026. In addition, the market is not expected to grow in any particular region but all over the world including Europe, North America, Latin America, Asia Pacific, and MEA.

That means if you launch a venture in this space, you have endless opportunities to expand your business and serve people all over the world. No boundaries! No obligations!

2. More Funds are Pouring into Digital Health Market Now than Ever Before

According to reports, more than $21.3 billion were invested in digital health ventures across 541 deals in 2021. It means investors are seeing huge potentials in this sector are ready to invest in innovative ideas.

From Amazon to Walmart, even big players are entering the market as they see the change in trend and increasing usage of the internet for medicine delivery. Find out more here about How COVID-19 Gave a Boost to Healthcare and TeleMedicine Apps.

Over the years, tablets, laptops, and smartphones have become omnipresent and so has the internet. Doesn’t matter if a patient is 15-years-old or more than 50-years-old, the online solutions are available for all and are providing immense benefits.

3. Prescription Delivery Apps Provide Immense Benefits

Not just for businesses, pharmacy delivery apps provide several benefits to customers as well. Medicines ordered via a mobile app save time, provide consumers access to wide options, and preserve privacy.

Here is how these apps benefit customers and businesses:

Due to the convenience these solutions provide, prescription delivery will grow in popularity in the years to come. So, start building your prescription delivery app today and stand out among competitors for the years to come. Here is what you need to do to get started.

The Process to Build an App for Prescription Delivery: How to Get Started

While developing a pharmacy delivery app, you need to make sure that you fulfill the needs of every one of your stakeholders. Here is how you should get started in order to do the same.

Step 1: Choose a Business Model

Before starting a venture in the prescription delivery sector, you need to decide your business model. Basically, it is an outline of how your app will operate and make money. Most of the popular apps in this industry work using two business models:

• Dedicated Prescription Delivery Business Model

Big pharma companies or stores that own huge inventories operate using this business model. Such businesses build a medicine delivery app to expand their own business from offline to online and operate across borders.

There are many advantages of using this business model; you can increase your brand awareness and make a lot of money using different monetization strategies. You can either sell directly to consumers or retailers in different nations. However, you will require a huge inventory and funding to get started.

• Marketplace Business Model

The second option is you can operate using a marketplace model. Using this model, you can start your operations without even owning any inventory. All you need is a network of local brick-and-mortar pharmacies that agree to sell their products on your platform. Using this model, you will work as an aggregator between end consumers and medicine retailers.

This business model needs very little infrastructure and no inventory is required, so you can use whatever funds you have in improving the core functions of your startups and marketing operations. In addition, this model reduces monopoly and benefits all the stakeholders (customers, medicine retailers, delivery personnel, and app owners) involved while providing convenience to all.

Depending on your business model, you can choose one or more than one monetization models for your application. But, you need to do it before you embark on your journey to development because making major changes in the app infrastructure, later on, would cost you a lot of money and time.

Here are some of the popular revenue streams used by key players in the market to stay profitable and monetize their pharmacy delivery businesses:

Step 2: Register Your Online Pharmacy

Now that you are dealing with one of the most important domains of the healthcare industry, you are required to take the necessary precautions. Any online healthcare business is a bit different from other online businesses since you will be dealing with patients’ medical records and other confidential information. So, you need to stay compliant with all the rules and regulations.

Once you decide on your business and revenue model, it is time to get your online pharmacy registered. You can get in touch with a business consultant or agent who has knowledge about the registration process, which varies from country to country. For example, in India, you need to get registered with and follow the norms set by CDSCO (Central Drugs Standard Control Organization) to establish your online pharmacy.

Step 3: Decide the Features of Your MVP

Depending on the business model you choose, the MVP features of your prescription delivery app may vary. In most cases, such an app consists of the following panels, and these panels must have the below-mentioned features:

1. Customer App

• Seamless Onboarding: Let customers download, install, and register in your app seamlessly. Make their experience smooth and remove all the friction in the process by allowing them to sign up using social media, email, and phone numbers.
• Upload Prescription: Your customers should have an option to upload the prescription given by doctors directly in the app. Allow different ways to upload prescriptions, for example, by clicking a picture, or sharing a document, or link. It will make their ordering process easier and you will have evidence that the requested drugs are prescribed by a doctor.
• Medicine Information: You must provide your customers complete information about the medicines listed in your application, for example, the name of the manufacturer, possible side effects, expiry date, ailments treated using it, and other information.
• Robust Search & Filters: No doubt your prescription delivery application will have several products from different retailers and manufacturers. So, make sure you provide your consumers with an option to search for the exact product they want. Provide them the option to find medicines by applying different filters like problems, name of the manufacturer, medicine name, FAQs, etc.
• Product Comparison: With this feature, customers would be able to compare different products based on customer reviews, prices, etc to secure the best deal. You can also use this feature to monetize your app by recommending top-selling retailers at the top and charging a fee for the same.
• Alternate Suggestion: Customers may find some of the medicines too expensive or having some side effects. To help them out, your app should always suggest alternates of each medicine to eliminate every chance of a customer not making a purchase.
• In-App Payment: While selling anything online, allowing customers to make payments in-app is a must-have feature. Make sure you provide a secure payment gateway and integrate most of the payment methods in-app like credit or debit cards, mobile wallets, etc.
• Order Tracking: You can bear delays in the delivery of clothes, food, and accessories but when it comes to medicines, you need to stick with timelines. To provide your consumers information about their order status, you must allow them to track it in-app with real-time updates.
• Push Notification: This is the most required feature of a prescription delivery application. You can use push notifications to inform customers about order confirmation, the latest offers, trending products, medicine refills, etc. This feature is equally important for consumers and app owners.
• Recurring Orders: To build a loyal consumer base, you must make it easy for your consumers to repeat orders. You can also think about integrating a subscription feature in your app using which your customers would be able to get their medicines regularly without ordering.

2. Pharmacist App

• Seamless Onboarding: Just like consumers, you should set up a seamless app onboarding process for pharmacists as well. They should be able to log in using their username and ID. In addition, their registration and license verification process should be as simple as possible.
• Notifications: Your app should notify the store admin about new orders, canceled orders, successful/unsuccessful deliveries, and payments in real time.
• Prescription Details: A drug retailer should receive proper information about the prescription in their panel. Sometimes, the documents uploaded by customers are not clear so your app should have a process in place that helps sort out this problem.
• Order Management and History: The store staff should be able to manage orders, and returns, see payment status, refund requests, etc in the app. They should be able to keep a record of all the orders in the app to avoid conflicts later on.
• Payment Tracking: Let store owners know about the payment status of each order and your app should provide them an option to track their earnings from the platform.
• Customer Support: Let them interact with customers and solve their queries related to drug availability, unavailability, prices, or discounts. It will improve customer loyalty and retention.

3. Driver App

• Seamless Onboarding: If you are providing a driver panel, it must be very easy to use as people will use it on the roads. So, pay special attention to the app’s UI and UX and make it simple yet helpful. The driver’s app should have all the required information about the driver like name, contact number, address, driving license number, etc.
• Route Guidance: Just like in Uber and Lyft, you must help your drivers find the optimal route using GPS in order to deliver orders in the shortest possible time and improve customer satisfaction rate.
• Push Notifications: Your drivers should be informed in real-time about new orders, canceled orders, or any other updates that affect their work. Without push notifications, they won’t be able to stay updated on what is going on with other stakeholders.
• Quick Communication: You must give drivers an option to contact store owners and customers in-app using calls or messages.
• Earnings Reports: They should be able to track their earnings in-app so that they can set targets and work accordingly.
• Performance History: They should also be able to check their history in-app to analyze performance and improve the time taken to get orders delivered.
• Ratings and Feedback: Motivate drivers to fill performance gaps in their service. Higher ratings and better reviews could also prompt higher incentives.

4. Admin Panel

• Dashboard: To control and manage the operations of a prescription delivery app, you will need an easy-to-use dashboard to access all the required information in one place. It must have details about orders, retailers, stock expiry, pending requests, customer complaints, selling data, reports, etc.
• Inventory Management: If you own an inventory, it is crucial to have real-time information about your stock. Your admin panel should have all the information about products like manufacturer details, quantity available, reorder level, upcoming expiry date, etc.
• Vendor Management: You must have details of all the retailers that are selling on your platform so that you can analyze their performance and customer complaints to take the required actions.
• Order Management: Depending on the stock available in your inventory, you should be able to notify suppliers from within the app about the required products. In addition, all orders should be tracked in the backend.
• Price Management: It will be your responsibility to set the right price for your products. Based on market demand, you should be able to surge prices or provide discounts on your products.
• Complaint Management: All queries and complaints raised by customers and other stakeholders should be visible to the admin along with their status. This will help you improve the customer experience of your platform.
• Marketing: Your team should be getting data from the admin panel to set up effective marketing campaigns to cross-sell and upsell products in-app and improve conversion rates.
• Monetization Reports: You should be able to see how much profit you are making as a result of different monetization strategies adopted by you so that you can focus on improvements.

Also Read: How Does Practo Work: Business And Revenue Model

Step 4: Make Sure You Comply with Rules and Regulations

While dealing with patient health records and prescriptions, you need to make sure you comply with mandatory rules and regulations enforced by the government, for example:

FDA Regulations: All healthcare and prescription delivery apps need to comply with the regulation set by the FDA, which is responsible for managing the effectiveness and safety of medical mobile apps. The FDA approval is required to have access to patients’ medical history, diet, and other conditions.

Data Security: Online medicine delivery applications need to safeguard delicate patient health data from being unveiled without the patient’s consent as per HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act 1996).

GDPR: If you are dealing with people in Europe, make sure you comply with GDPR. It lists terms and conditions to ensure no user data is being stored or used for purposes other than the mentioned ones.

Step 5: Hire a Reliable Mobile App Development Company

Now that everything is sorted and you are ready with your business plan, it is time to hire a reliable mobile app development company to help you turn your dreams into reality. Remember, your tech partners are going to be the backbone of your business, so make sure you hire the right ones after doing all the required research.

How Much Does it Cost to Develop a Pharmacy Delivery App?

Now you must be wondering how much it costs to build a prescription delivery app and whether you will have the funding or not. Honestly, we can not answer this question in some numbers because the cost to develop any application depends on several factors.

Some of the factors that play a crucial role in deciding the app development cost are:

So, the cost depends on a number of things. But, to give you a ballpark number, the minimum budget for a prescription delivery mobile app should be around $12,000 for a single platform, which can go up to $30,000 or even more, depending on all the above-mentioned factors.

The Bottom Line: Hire Prescription Delivery App Developers

Online prescription delivery applications have become famous among big capital firms. That is the reason huge players like Amazon and Walmart have entered fierce competition in the online medicine business. If you are also planning to do something in this field, now is the right time for you. The interest of investors in medicine businesses is soaring, and an online delivery application can adequately manage it.

Be it a budding startup, SME, or big brand, mobile app development is crucial for everybody to secure a competitive edge in the industry. From development to marketing, and testing, mobile app development agencies like Apptunix have all that you need to get started. We provide online prescription delivery solutions with best-in-class features to help budding entrepreneurs get to the market fast.