Overview of E-pharma Market in India

E-pharmacy holds the potential to improve the accessibility of medicine to even the remotest corners of the country. The first online pharmacy was started in the US in the late 1990s. In India, the e-pharmacy space is still at a nascent stage. The market was estimated at US$0.5b in 2019 with companies such as NetMeds, PharmEasy, Medlife, and TATA 1mg dominating the market. It is projected to reach US$4.5b in 2025 at a CAGR of 44% for the period 2019- 2025, representing about 10%-12% of the pharmaceutical sales.

Why E-pharma holds such promises because of its unique Value proposition that its promises:




















TATA 1Mg overview

Revenue from operations rose 65.7% to Rs 222.10 crore in FY22, while its net loss narrowed to Rs 146.30 crore. Revenue from operations in FY21 stood at Rs 134.04 crore and its net loss was Rs 281.41 crore. Its other income for the financial year ended March 31, 2021, was Rs 24.14 crore.Total income during FY22 was at Rs 246.25 crore, up 44.19 per cent from Rs 170.78 crore in the previous year. In FY22, facilitation fees accounted for Rs 23.15 crore of revenue and Rs 139.64 crore came from lab test receipts. TATA 1Mg is valued at $1.25Bn with latest round raised at $41Mn.

Following is Analysis with defined parameters comparison with competition:





















Competitors Analysis

Who are the competitors for 1Mg in this space. The E-pharma in India as it is in nascent stage has many competitors and the space is too crowded with no specific unique proposition of any.




















Users Analysis

In India major concern in Medicine market is more than 50% of the medicines that are purchased are without prescription. Over the counter medicines are the biggest concern moving ahead for India. The local chemist if a customer ask for medicine for 10 times for only 5 to 6 times he will ask for prescription and for rest he will just give the required medicine without any concern.

User want to consult the doctor but due to following reasons mainly they avoid the visit

Following graph will summarize Why users avoid hospital visit:



















1. Personal knowledge (40%): user think that they know and will get cure by taking this medicine. Why they think:
2. Time Constraint (30%): Many working professionals avoid hospital visit due to time constraint. As they know if they visit hospital almost a day will go.
3. High Consultation fee (25%): Many users if the symptoms are not that severe they tend to avoid doctors visit to save the consultation fee
4. Family support (5%): For many women specially they avoid doctors consultation due to lack of family support and do not tend to go to hospital
It is not that users do not know are not concern about the side effects of the medicines but there many factors which play in on how the users buy the medicines without prescription and consultation
Following graph will summarize How users buy medicines without prescription and consultation:




















1. Users many time use the old prescription to buy the medicine for their current symptoms
2. User buy the medicine without prescription at local chemist because user knows that chemist might give the medicine and he/she might avoid the hospital visit.
3. Advertisement are another factor due to which users tend to buy the given medicines without any consultation and prescriptions
4. User tend to consult with Family & Friend and with their recommendation buy the given medicine what they have suggested

User Persona

TATA 1Mg can focus on typically the below three personas and try to solve their pain points which will help to focus on the core problems and gain traction in the space




















From the above User analysis and User Persona. TATA 1Mg can focus on below three core problems:

1. Time Constraint
2. Consultation Fee
3. Trust

Solution Space
Following are the recommendations that I think will help solve the above problems




















f we think from Users perspective they require someone who to consult for relatively less sever symptoms primary and want to take their recommendation before going to hospital. Why this is expected: They will save Time and Money. So they go to chemist and ask for medicines. What TATA 1Mg can do:

1. There are many MBBS final year students which know how to diagnose the basic and primary symptoms and have some work experience.
2. We can onboard them on the platform with the pre requisite such as letter of recommendation and other factors which they can decide
3. We can keep a separate tab as primary consultation in which Users can schedule a in house appointment wit such students

What will it solve: User have to pay less and also they can get Inhouse consultation as immediately as possible which will solve the Time constraint issue.

2. Trust :TATA 1mg can build a recommendation and review mechanism. For e.g a User has move to a new city and does not know any doctors or professionals in this city:
1. User can first enter the hometown and along with the trusted doctors from the hometown
2. 1Mg can connect with the trusted doctor and ask for their recommendation in this city
3. For the doctors in this city TATA 1Mg can show to a user that this are the list of doctors which your trusted doctor has recommended
4. This will form a network and increase the trust on the platform

Learnings
1. We are oriented to find solution due to culture and psychology but if we want to succeed in understanding the users we have to focus our 95% of time in finding problem of users and 5% on just solutioning.
2. While building any product or feature it is very important to test the given hypothesis this can be only done through Build-Test-Learn model.