In 2019, the global ePharmacy market size was valued at $42.32 B. The expected CAGR for 2020-2025 is 17.3%. That’s a phenomenal growth rate for any industry. And, if you are also planning ePharmacy app development, this article will give you some great information on how to generate revenue from your online medicine delivery app.
But before we dive into the finer details, let us get a bird-eye view of the basic economics of an app:
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ePharmacy App Development Cost
The cost of developing an app depends on factors like feature complexity, number of UI pages, security needs, advanced features, etc.
Further costs also vary if you are creating a native (platform-specific) or cross-platform (platform-independent) app.
If you are building an app like mg, here’s how much you must expect to spend on its development for a single platform.
- Basic ePharmacy App Development Cost (1 Platform): $25,000 – $50,000
- Medium-size ePharmacy App Development Cost (1 Platform): $50,000-$100,000
- Complex ePharmacy App Development Cost (1 Platform): >$100,000
If you choose a cross-platform App framework like Xamarin, Ionic, or Flutter, the development cost will be 10-20% less.
Cross-platform apps use a single codebase that can be deployed across multiple platforms. However, cross-platform development has its limitations as well.
Cross-platform apps do have the same level of performance as native apps. The user experience is also not that exceptional. App updates also take longer than normal for cross-platform frameworks.
So, if you have a limited budget, then we would suggest you choose cross-platform frameworks and build your app for multiple platforms at once. However, if budget is not a constraint for you, you can start building for one platform, and then when you have built the app switch over to the next platform.
A general rule of the thumb is to start with iOS and then move over to Android. The development time for iOS Apps is less than that for Android Apps.
Further, if you have no programming skills and have no idea how to develop an app like 1mg? The best thing to do is hire a third-party developer. They will hand over a tailored app solution without wasting much of your precious time and money. Moving ahead….
How Do Medical Delivery Apps like 1mg Make Money?
That mobile apps have made our life easier is something that all of us will agree upon. Whether it’s buying groceries online or planning our next holiday trip, mobile phones have made our world simpler and more organized.
And in exchange for making life click-easy for us, mobile app services are making tons of money. Here’s how medicine delivery apps make money:
Partnership
Less price, good discount, and great deals: unless you can provide these to your users the chance that they will use your app to buy medicines is very limited.
SO, the first thing that any medicine delivery app does to attract revenue is offer medicines at a lower rate.
To do so, medicine delivery apps partner with offline brick-and-mortar stores. Ideally, an agreement is signed that highlights each partner’s percentage share in the sale. That comes out as a profitable deal for both parties.
The pharmacy owner has easy access to a large customer base that is more than willing to buy medicines online. The medicine delivery service, on the other hand, has a readily available stock of medicine.
At first, you might feel the app delivery service is getting only a small share of the medicine sales. But when you put together the volume of sales made by an ePharmacy app against those made by a standalone brick and mortar shop, you will realize that the former’s numbers are exponential.
There is no limit to the number of partners a medicine delivery app can have. And that’s exactly what puts ePharmacy apps in the driver’s seat as far as sales and gross revenue are concerned.
Subscription Model
Although not as popular as the partnership model, the subscription model can be a steady source of revenue for a medicine delivery app that is still in its infancy and serves a small radius.
But how can medicine buyers pay upfront fees?
The solution lies in offering value-added services at discounted rates such as:
- Special deals on appointments with popular Doctors in the area.
- Shopping/Discount coupons applicable on other online services
- Travel Coupons/Pizza Hut Coupons
- Special discounts for recommending friends/family
- Zero delivery charges
- And More
Create a subscription model that entices people to pay for quarterly, half-yearly, or annual subscription plans. Subscription models work extremely well if your subscribers recommend the plans to their friends, family, and on their social profiles. So make sure that you create a plan that gives them more than a few reasons to recommend them to others.
Delivery Fees
While the delivery charge is justifiable in the case of doorstep medicine delivery, the repeat customers may not be pleased every time you add a delivery charge to their bill. Instead, you can use a combination of the subscription model and delivery fees.
For first-time buyers, you can charge delivery fees on their prescription bills. But for repeat customers, you can also use email marketing to drop the mail and remind them of the benefits they are missing out on by not using your subscription model.
Advertising
Last but not least, in-app advertising is used by thousands of mobile apps to generate revenue. But it’s getting tricky for an online medicine delivery service.
Some users may find ads irrelevant and others may consider it a bad user experience. While ads can help generate gid revenue, they may compromise user experience and brand loyalty. In the long run, this may hamper your app retention rate and overall business as well.
However, there is a way you can use in-app advertising for increasing revenue without compromising on brand loyalty or user experience. You can run ad campaigns for products or services that are related to healthcare.
For instance, let’s say there is a company that makes nutritional drinks. You can partner with the company and run targeted campaigns to entice users who have previously shown interest in buying nutritious drinks.
Similarly, you can identify other products and services that intersect with the healthcare sector in some way or the other.
Conclusion
We have covered all the basic revenue models that medicine delivery apps like 1mg use to make money. Getting into finer details is beyond the scope of this blog. However, we do hope that the information we shared was helpful to you.
Before we wrap up the last piece of advice for anyone who wants to know how to develop an app like 1mg:
There are plenty of opportunities in ePharmacy and there is plenty of room for new players. But the app idea must be backed by ample market research. Social media is always a good place to start. Use these platforms to collect information on things like:
- The thing that people like most about online medicine delivery
- The thing that people like least about online medicine delivery
- Will people prefer to buy medicines in bulk?
- What value-added services would people want in an online medicine delivery app?
At the end of your research, you will be able to make an informed decision concerning your app’s features, its revenue model, its value-added services, and more. All the best!