We are living in an age where everything can be delivered to your doorstep within a few minutes. The delivery services have been accepted by a large population of the planet. It delivers users extreme feasibility and assists them in daily chores. Online pharmacy app development has been on the rise since the pandemic as the majority of the world population is restricted to their homes, and it fulfills their need for medicine delivery.
However, developing an online pharmacy app has its own challenges as it requires extreme security and advanced technologies to detect fake prescriptions, among other things. Entrepreneurs are vastly investing in online pharmacy app development solutions as the global market of these apps projects quite promising figures. If you are finding it difficult to make up your mind to develop an online pharmacy app for your business, the market figures never lie, and the projections are based on solid research. The global market of online pharmacy app development is projected to grow more than 107.53 billion USD by the year 2025. The current growth rate of the said market is projected at a CAGR of 14.26 percent.
All you need is a solid vision, a perfect team of developers, and a reliable online pharmacy app development company. In this blog, you will learn about the development process of an online pharmacy app. Let’s dig in.
How Does Online Pharmacy App Work?
The working principle of online medicine delivery apps is extremely simple to understand. There are four parameters that are involved in the process of a successful order; pharmacy, customer, courier, admin. Their work is pre-defined to make the workflow flexible.
When a customer opens the app, they are asked to register themselves with a little information about themselves. The next step is to select the medicine the customer needs and, on the next step, upload the prescriptions related to the ordered medicines. The admin verifies the prescriptions and allows the next step, which involves payment and adding the delivery address.
After the order is placed, the pharmacy is alerted on the app, and they pack the medicine as per the ordered dosage. When the order is packed, the nearest courier person is informed about the order. All these updates are made available to the customers on their app. Courier reaches the pharmacy in the next step and collects the order. The address of the customer will now be displayed on the courier side app version.
The customers can simply track the location of the courier person and get an idea about the delivery time. When the order is handed to the customers, the order is marked complete, and both customers and the delivery person get the option to rate the service. This is how you get an order of medicines online.
How to Develop an Online Pharmacy App?
Online pharmacy app development does have a little complexity attached to the process, but it doesn’t make it difficult. You have to gather data about the market in the first step for a better view of the market situation. The one and only decision that will decide the quality of your pharmacy app is finding a reliable online pharmacy app development company. Make sure to choose a perfect one, you can find hundreds of them online, but you should be able to judge them based on certain parameters such as previous records, clientele, reviews, workforce capabilities, and more.
Let’s get to the process and the components involved in the online pharmacy app.
Market Analysis
Reading the market before getting to any decision of your online pharmacy app development is recommended by the experts. Conduct detailed market research about your competitors and their marketing strategies along with their monetization models to analyze better. Deeper market research will get you access to data that will help you market your app better.
You can either hire a marketing company to get this research data on your behalf, or you can set up your own marketing team to conduct the research. However, setting up a department for a single project doesn’t make sense, and you’ll end up spending a lot of capital for a short cause. Instead, you can just purchase a detailed market research report based on your niche from various marketing websites available on the internet.
Plan Everything
When you have access to the detailed datasets of the marketing research conducted by your team, the next step should be planning every single bit of the process to avoid any uncalculated risks. Ask your development partner to integrate the top features and technology stack for the better performance of the app. Discuss topics with your team from budget to marketing plans. Get everything in place to get a perfect roadmap.
Features to Consider
Features are the main USP of any app development process. In the case of pharmacy app development, there are generally four sets of features that are needed to be integrated. One for the customers, one for the pharmacy, one for the admins, and one for the delivery partners.
User Panel Features
There are certain features that are necessary for the users of an online pharmacy app development. We have listed some of the prominent features of the user panel.
| Login and Signup | Allow users to register themselves on the app by providing various personal details such as name, age, address, etc. Various apps allow users to directly sign in to the app through social media handles. |
| Manage Profile | Allow users to manage their profile data such as addresses, cards, payment methods, and more. |
| Add Prescription | Allow users to either upload a prescription or scan one from the device’s camera. |
| Search Medicine | Allow users to search for their required medicines by name, salts, brands, and more. |
| Order Medicine | Allow users to add the selected medicines into the cart of the app for a better review of the purchase. |
| Seamless Payments | Allow users to pay for the medicines ordered via different payment methods such as debit/credit card, net banking, etc. |
| Order History | Allow users to check their order history to get an idea of the medications they have ordered over a selected period of time. |
| Drug Details | Allow users to get the complete details of a drug, such as date of manufacture, expiry, and more. |
| Ratings & Feedback | Allow users to rate the drugs based on their experiences and help others in judging better. |
| Notification | Allow users to get alerted about their order status, updates of the app, offers on the app, and more. |
| Refund | Allow users to get the complete details of their refund status along with the transaction number and the amount. |
| Rewards & Discounts | Allow users to get some kind of reward point from the app in exchange for their purchase and use those points on their next purchase. |
| Reorder | Allow users to purchase their previously ordered items with just a click; just select the items from the order history and click reorder. |
| Search for Substitutes | Allow users to search for similar medicines with exact salts in case the desired medicine is not available. |
| Chat/Audio Call | Allow users to get in touch with the pharmacy, courier person, or the doctor on-call facility through audio call or text chat. |
| Order Tracking | Allow users to get the exact order status of their purchase, whether it has been confirmed, packed, or on the way. |
| Online Doctor Consultation | Allow users to ask for an online doctor’s consultation and get their queries resolved. |
Pharmacy Panel Features
Pharmacy panels depict the features that are needed for the easy working of pharmacy employees. Here are some of the features that are necessary for the pharmacy.
| Login | Allow pharmacy employees to sign in or create new profiles for approving orders or signing bills. |
| Order Management | Allow users to get complete control over the pharmacy stocks, billings, and more on a complete dashboard. |
| Order Notifications | Allow users to get alerts about various parameters of the pharmacy, such as new orders, order history, new discounts, and more. |
| Digital Prescriptions | Allow users to send the digital prescriptions of patients or the customers to their app or get the prescriptions from customers for verification. |
| Payments | Allow users to manage payments associated with their pharmacy expenses or courier expenses. |
| Order History | Allow users to keep a complete record of the medicine orders fulfilled, refunded, cancelled, and more. |
| Analytics | Allow users to get detailed reports about expenses, sales, promotions, and more. |
| Discounts | Allow users to broadcast offers, discounts, and more about the medicines orders to attract new customers. |
| Delivery Tracking | Allow users to get the status of the order with the help of maps. |
| Related Medications | Allow users to list various substitutes of medicines and deliver better feasibility to the users. |
| Chat/Audio Call | Allow users to get in touch with the customers and the courier person for better understanding. |
Admin Panel Features
Here are some of the features that are needed for the admins to manage the app efficiently.
| Dashboard | Allow admins to get a complete overview of the performance of the app all in one place. |
| Payment Gateways | Allow admins to manage various payment gateways integrated into the app. |
| Analytics | Allow admins to get the complete data figures of the app, such as new users, dormant users, sales, and more. |
| Customer Support | Allow admins to deliver excellent customer support to the users in case of any issue. |
| Inventory Management | Allow admins to get the exact count of the medicines available and the ones that are sold in a day or any period of time. |
| Add/Remove Users & Suppliers | Allow users to approve or disapprove users and suppliers for better functioning of the app. |
Delivery Panel Features
There are certain features that are necessary for the delivery agent side of the app to get their issues corrected and allow them to work efficiently. Here are some of those that you might want to integrate into your online pharmacy app.
| Registration/Login | Allow delivery agents to register themselves on the app with a minimal amount of personal information. |
| Delivery Agent Profile | Allow delivery agents to manage their profile data such as their timings, address, payment info, and more. |
| Push Notifications | Allow delivery agents to get alerts related to the order confirmation and navigation. |
| GPS | Allow delivery agents to get the directions either to the pharmacy or the customer’s location easily. |
| Delivery Status | Allow delivery agents to alert the customer or pharmacy by updating the delivery status through the app. |
| Analytics | Allow delivery agents to get their side of reports in detail with every parameter that concerns them. |
| Order History | Allow delivery agents to get an idea about the previous orders they have delivered. |
| Current Status | Allow delivery agents to toggle their work status on or off as per their feasibility. |
Technology Stacks to Consider
In order to fuel the features of your online pharmacy app, you’ll need a dynamic and robust tech stack. You can either put your market research data to use, or you can ask your online pharmacy app development company to integrate one for you as per the requirements. Here is a generic tech stack that top online pharmacy apps use.
| Application and Data | jQuery, NGINX, Amazon S3, Modernizr, Ruby, Amazon CloudFront, Rails, Foundation |
| Utilities | Google Analytics, Twilio SendGrid, Optimizely, Segment, Heap |
| DevOps | New Relic, TrackJS |
| Business Tools | Gmail, G Suite, Help Scout |
Design, Development & Testing
Now that you have all the data required to proceed with your development process of the pharmacy app, proceed with the development part. Ask your developers and the UI/UX designers to design the interface of your app. Keep it extremely simple yet effective. Users like a simple design on an online pharmacy app.
After the coding and the design part, it’s time to test the processes involved in the app. Ask your testing engineers to test the app from every possible angle so that there are no bugs and errors in the app when launched. No one prefers an app that has errors and bugs. It is recommended to create an MVP before launching a full-fledged app. It will help in solving various challenges that will come your way during the marketing of the app.
Ready to Develop Your Online Pharmacy App with Matellio?
Pharmacy apps are gathering a lot of popularity in the current times as they deliver flexibility to the users. Once you get started with your pharmacy app development process, decide your goal and stay updated with the market trends for better results. If you are thinking of developing an online pharmacy app, Matellio can help you with an efficient solution developed by experienced developers.
Our team of developers is highly skilled and has diversified experience. We have one of the shortest turnaround times in the market and deliver extremely quality apps. With the experience of more than a decade, we are ready to develop a custom solution for your pharmacy business without exceeding your budget. Discuss your idea over a free 30-min consultation call with our experts today!
