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The continued rise of ePharmacy, what does the future hold for Australia?
Jul 12, 2021
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, we saw consumers look to online for their Consumer Health products like never before. At its peak in May 2020, 7% of all Consumer Health pharmacy sales were online. Now, ePharmacy accounts for 5% of all Consumer Health pharmacy sales (though remains up from 3% in 2019). The ability for Australian pharmacy retailers to pivot to online quickly limited the impact of the overall economic downturn.
Over the last 2 years, ePharmacy sales have grown at +70%, compared to the decline in brick and mortar pharmacy sales (-6%) and overall Consumer Heath pharmacy sales (-4%). Even compared to the peak lockdown period in May 2020 ePharmacy growth sits at +28%. Last year, I wrote about some of the headwinds facing online ePharmacy retailers during set up (read more here). Nearly one year on, let’s take a look at the latest ePharmacy trends:
- New adopters: The pandemic saw a surge in shoppers using the channel for the first time, over 1 million households made an online purchase for the first time in 20201. Retaining these new customers by providing an excellent experience will be critical in winning in the ePharmacy space. This can be done through personalisation, loyalty programs, using data to make recommendations, as well as building trust traditionally experienced in store.
- Stock availability: The peaks and troughs for product demand, combined with disruption to international supply chains, makes it challenging for manufacturers to forecast adequate stock levels. Fast access to sales data is more important than ever to mitigate this.
- Basket size: In store, the average number of items in a basket is 3, but 50% of transactions only have 1 item. Shopper behaviour needs to be encouraged to change to larger baskets that justify the shipping fees and delivery times, for a further shift to online sales.
- Delivery times: 3-4 day delivery times for Consumer Health products will continue to restrict penetration despite 1/3 of ABS Household Impacts of COVID-19 Survey respondents indicating they prefer to shop online, more so than pre-pandemic.
- Category winners: There are a broad range of categories experiencing significant growth in ePharmacy. Some of the fastest growing online categories, compared to 2020, include pregnancy tests (+124%), baby care (+122%), nutritional supplements (+105), incontinence (+72%) and allergy (+61%).
The Future
We see ePharmacy continuing to grow at a rate of 30% yearly, with peaks in pandemic lockdown periods. The channel will continue to grow in importance, and 2023 ePharmacy predicted sales are expected to account for ~10% of all pharmacy sales, with some categories reaching over 20% of sales.
Certainly, consumer expectations of ePharmacy are growing, driven by developments in eCommerce in other industries. There is an opportunity for both retailers and manufacturers to seek a competitive advantage through the use of data and analytics. A comprehensive view of data will make it possible to capture insights, view the latest trends and shape strategy for success.
For more information, please feel free to contact us.
1 Australia Post, Inside Australian Online Shopping, eCommerce Industry Report, 2021.
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