On-Demand Medicine Delivery App Development Cost & Features

Last Updated on September 20, 2022

Medicines are one of the essential items that everyone requires at some point. However, sometimes people have to face the hassle of waiting in lines or not finding the required drug at the store. Well, on-demand medicine delivery apps are the perfect solution to this issue. The pharmacy industry is adopting new methods to reach out to its customers and it involves developing a feature-rich medicine delivery mobile app.

Medicine Delivery Apps: Pharmacy Selling Medicines Online

The on-demand medicine delivery apps have taken the pharmacy industry by storm. The offline retailers have been struggling to cope up with the demand for medicines by the people. These online stores have also spared the people the time they take to go to the chemist shops to buy medicines. They are also lured into buying from these mobile apps as they get lucrative discounts over the medicines and can shop from the convenience of their home.

As for the retailers, they are also experiencing a positive work balance with the help of these applications as they can reach a larger number of people and cater to their needs on a wide scale. They have to be very careful about making timely and prompt deliveries as medicine is a necessity, and one does not want to take a chance with it. Therefore, retailers should have a properly functioning delivery system that is reliable and trustworthy.

These online pharmacies OR medicine delivery applications are a game-changer in the world of medicines, as it enables the customers to get doorstep delivery. With a number of medicines available for a certain issue, one can browse through the one that suits their needs the best and buy that. Secure payments can be instantly made, which doesn’t even require the customer to have cash present with them all the time.

Medicine delivery apps proved big help during the Covid-19 pandemic

In the time of Covid-19, people have turned to online medicine delivery systems as one of the biggest support systems. The availability of medicine is the most important thing. With the pandemic leading to lockdown and stay at home orders, it did not only become difficult for people to go to the shops to get medicines but also brought a decline in the availability of medicines as people stocked up their medicines and hoarded chemist shops for masks and sanitizers. Gradually people started turning to these on-demand medicine delivery applications, wherein they could check the availability of the product just with a few clicks and place orders online, hassle-free.

While the people were scared to step out of their houses at this point in time, they could make contactless orders for medicine and get it delivered at home. Soon this trend became popular and people became more inclined towards the online pharmacy apps. Patients who did not want to get themselves admitted to the hospitals also started uploading their prescriptions on these apps and got their medicines delivered straight at home.

Why Invest in on Demand Medicine Delivery App Development – Market Size and Stats

The e-pharmacy market had been struggling in some aspects, however, Covid-19 brought a big surge in the fitness and healthcare industry. An exponential rise in demand was witnessed by the Online pharmacy systems. According to market research by Zion Market research, the e-pharmacy market will go up to USD 107.53 billion by the end of 2025. Take a look at some stats of the industry:

• According to Zion market research, the e-pharmacy market was of the size of USD 42.32 billion in 2018 and is expected to rise to USD 107.53 billion by 2025.
• mHealth apps are expected to reach USD 111.1 billion by 2025, according to another report by Zion. The market was earlier valued at USD 8 billion in 2018.

Take a look at the size of the online Pharmacy global market through this graphical representation:

The following image displays the global e-pharmacy market share, by product, 2018

Another illustration following this text throws light on the pharmaceutical drug delivery market by region:

Business Models to Consider Before  On-Demand Medicine Delivery App Development

There are two models of making money from an e-pharmacy app. Take a look:

1. Medicine Delivery App Development for Single Store

The first one is an operational model, wherein, the customers place their orders with the online retailers, by submitting their prescription. The online retailers then check for the availability of the product and send it to the person who ordered those medicines. The user then makes the payment of the medicines online.

2. Aggregator Medicine Delivery App Development

The second model does not require the online pharmacy to stock in their own medicines, instead these enter into a partnership with local chemist shops. When a user places an order, the e-pharmacy checks for the nearest chemist shop to that user, which is also a partner of the app. They redirect the demand of the product to these local chemists and the local shops deliver the medicines manually to the users. Both the parties (e-pharmacy and chemist shop) have to sign the terms and agreements before venturing into a partnership for this kind of business model.

3. Direct to Consumer

In the third and final model, the apps try to avoid any middlemen for the delivery of the medicines or their supply. They can attain better and stronger control over their business by reaching out to their customers directly.

Monetization Opportunities in Medicine Delivery Applications

1. Commission-based model

This is the basic model which almost all apps follow. As an on-demand medicine delivery application provides pharmaceutical companies a platform, where they can sell their products/medicines to the buyers, they charge these companies a certain percentage of commission on the medicines sold or the number of sales made in on a day-to-day basis.

2. Featured Listing

This is a special section of medicine delivery application on either the homepage or the search bar, where the e-pharmacy apps display the sponsored results from pharmaceutical companies or Medicine stores.

3. Sell Advertisement

Another great source of generating revenue through an online pharmacy app, Medicine delivery apps can sell space for advertisements of any of the following –

• Pharmacy Companies
• Pharmaceutical companies
• Insurance companies
• Diagnostic centers
• Hospital Chains & Brands
• eWallet companies

Benefits of Online Medicine Home Delivery App

The online medicine delivery service has not only made it convenient for the users to look up for the medicines they want to buy but have also pushed the pharmacy industry a notch higher.

Take a look at the benefits drawn by the customers through these medicine delivery apps:

• Saving Precious Time: Customers/users do not have to roam around to various pharmacies looking for a particular medicine but can order the medicine of their choice from the convenience of their house.
• Updates about medicine availability: They keep in touch with this e-pharmacies through push notifications and keep getting all updates on the availability of medicines or medical equipment.
• Discounts and Offers: These apps are known for offering their users lucrative discounts, which otherwise is not possible at the chemist stores. Sometimes, they also get their medicines delivered to their doorstep, without having to pay for its delivery.
• Consult with an Expert: They can upload their prescription on the app and see if the medicines are available or not. Also, they can consult with a doctor as well about medicine intake and if there any side effects to any.

Also Read: How To Develop A Doctor On-Demand Mobile App

Now, let’s look at the advantages of e-pharmacy for the pharmacists:

• Better Buying Experience to users: Provides unparalleled experience to the customers through their high-end services from placing the order of medicines to its delivery.
• Access to new schemes: They get access to the schemes and marketing campaigns run by these e-pharmacy apps.
• Established customer base: They get repeated requests directly from the customers and can fulfill their demand by providing them with the medicines.
• Up-to-date Inventory: The inventory of these pharmacies does not need manual updating as this can be done by the apps, which also provides information about expiry dates and other details.
• Available medicine alternative: The alternative of any medicines can be looked up for on these apps.
• Overcome geographical restrictions: While the stores are restricted to one geographical area, they can expand their business with the help of these apps and reach customers at far off places as well.
• Increased reach: Pharmacies can expand their business by getting customers from other geographical areas as well.

Top Medicine Delivery Mobile Applications in the Market

While there are plenty of drug delivery apps that have cropped up in recent times, to meet the growing demand for medicine. There are few that have acquired top ranks when it comes to competition while providing healthy and safe services. Take a look at the top medicine delivery apps around the world:

1. Capsule pharmacy delivery app

Founded in 2016, this app made to the Forbes list of the largest companies in 2019. Capsule Pharmacy promises the delivery of any medicine ordered through the app, on the same day. The New York based app lets the users order the medicines either through their prescriptions or by entering text.

2. NowRX

The NowRX app made it to one of the leading medicine delivery apps in the U.S. in just three years of its being founded. This has some interesting features that allow the users to chat with the pharmacists, and other features like refills of their prescriptions using Alexa, and one of its features that makes it distinct from the others is that it allows the users to directly receive their prescription from the diction via the app.

3. CVS

Another American company CVS that stands a proud leader among e-pharmacy apps, it follows the agenda of same-day delivery. This does not only sell medicines but also provides users with other healthcare products and equipment.

4. NetMeds

This Indian company has gained popularity in no time and is serving more than 3 million users. NetMeds provides a hassle-free and seamless experience to the users and offers them other healthcare products along with ayurvedic and homeopathic medicines.

5. PillPack

Pillpack is owned and operated by one of the app giants – Amazon, this provides medicines to the customers without charging them any money for the delivery. Through the app, the users can connect the pharmacists to their caregivers so that the patients do not have to directly collect or order the medicine.

Challenges in Online Pharmacy App development

• FDA regulations: These apps have to comply with the rules and regulations laid down by the FDA, which promotes a healthy lifestyle and modification of the electronic devices into medical services that permit them access to services like tracking their diet, medication, and exercise.
• Data security: It is very important for online pharmacy application apps to provide security to the data of the patients according to HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act). There should be no disclosure of any patient’s health no matter what. So, if any patient’s details are shared with the hospitals and doctors through these apps, it must comply with the security rules of HIPAA.
• Facing conflict from the old enterprise systems: Hospitals that are following the old procedure of the distribution of medicines have not yet come to terms with this new method of delivering medicines to patients. Therefore, medicine delivery apps have been facing adaptability challenges with the legacy medical methods.

General Features of Medicine Delivery Apps

For Customers

1. Social Signup and Login

The users should be able to sign in easily and made the credentials according to his choice. The app should allow users to sign up with the help of their social media accounts like Gmail or Facebook. The login should be later don either through their mail ID’s or their mobile numbers.

2. Profile Management

A user should be able to make his profile on the app for a better and seamless experience. These profiles have all the information of the users regarding their address, previous orders, prescription history, payment details, among others.

3. Upload Prescriptions

It should enable the users to upload their prescriptions so that the pharmacists can look at the medicines and send the medicines accordingly. Therefore, they should be able to link their phone’s gallery to their account for uploading the prescription easily.

4. Filters for Category Search

The app should have filters and categories, for the users to easily look up medicines for any disease.

5. Medicine Details

Each medicine or drug listed on a medicine delivery mobile application should have all details pertaining to its medicines, like manufacturing date, expiry date, brand, manufacturer, price, salts, etc.

6. Expansive Search

The users should be able to look up for the substitute of medicine as the one he is looking for might not always be available.

Chemist Or Pharmacy Stores Panel

1. Manage Drug Details

A pharmacist or a store owner should independently be able to make changes in case he wants to add or remove any medicines from his list on the app. He should be able to access all information about its products.

2. Order Tracking & Notifications

The pharmacy should enable the feature of getting notified with a text message or a pup up message each time a user orders medicine. This helps them in processing the order fast.

3. Digital prescriptions

The app should allow the pharmacist to get access to the prescriptions uploaded by the users.

4. Manage Discounts

To get loyal customers for repeated orders, one should be able to offer them discounts.

5. Order Management

The pharmacists should be able to arrange the orders and look after things such as processing the orders, returns made by the customers, and providing refunds for those returns.HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act)

6. Track Payments

Maintain transparency, all payments should come directly in the app and the pharmacist should be able to track them easily.

7. Access Reviews & Ratings

It is very important to see what the customers think of their services and products; therefore, pharmacies should have access to all ratings and reviews given by the customers.

8. List Similar Medicines

A pharmacist should be allowed to guide the customers on buying similar medicines or substitute medicines in case of medicine from a particular brand is not available.

For Medicine Delivery Boy

1. Courier Profile

It should have the personal details of the delivery boy along with the history of deliveries made by him.

2. Push Messages

They should be intimidated about any new orders places through push notifications on their phones.

3. Tracking system

The delivery boys who are out to deliver the product should have a GPS tracking system to locate the customer easily.

4. Delivery updates

He should be able to update the status of the medicine delivery at each step so that all information stays up to date.

Online Pharmacy App – Admin Features

1. Inventory Management

This feature enables the admin to keep themselves updated about all products and the stock they have. They should be intimated about the expiry date of the products as well.

2. Marketing & Promotion Tools

They should be able to run campaigns that attract more customers. This helps them get in touch with more pharmaceutical companies.

3. Manage suppliers and users

The admin should have the power to manage the manufacturers, suppliers, and users through their online profile on the app.

4. Track ROT Profits

An admin should have the right to check his earning at any time of the year, of any month, quarter, or a year.

5. Access & Generate Reports

They should be allowed to get all data on the workflow of the app, so that they can prepare an up to date report on the same.

Advance features of medicine delivery mobile app

1. EHR (Electronic Health Record) connected customer profile

An app should be able to share the EHR profile of a user to a healthcare provider organization like the testing laboratories, emergency facilities, hospitals, and doctors.

2. Ask for expert advice

The users should be able to take advice from the experts on any medicine and its properties.

3. In-App Document Scanner

For those customers who want to share their prescriptions, and an inbuilt scanner is of great help as they can directly upload their prescriptions with it.

4. Document Management

Those users who upload their prescriptions on the app every now and then should be able to manage their documents.

5. EPA (Electronic Prior Authorization) integration

With this the health records can be linked to the EPA, allowing the healthcare professionals to obtain prior authorizations in real-time.

6. Push Notification

These messages notify the users when they are running out of their medicines and it’s time to purchase new medicines.

7. Lab Aggregation

This enables the customers to get information on the pathology labs near them. These apps also give out the information on the price details along with other details of the labs.

8. Medicine Reminders to Refill & Intake

With this feature, a user can know when it’s time for them to order new medicines. Also, the app will remind the patient the time when he/she has to consume medicine.

9. Collect from store

While come users can opt to get the medicine delivered, which might take a day or two, the app also offers them a feature where they can opt for collecting the medicine from the store.

10. Track near-by associate store

This feature enables the users to get in touch with the stores nearby.

11. In-app calling

The app should have a feature that enables the users to directly call the pharmacist and place orders through the phone.

12. In-app chat

A user should be able to chat with the pharmacist for getting an answer on his query or for placing order. Similarly, the delivery boy should also be able to chat with the customer when he is out delivering the medicines so that he can ask about the address details.

13. Number masking

This feature safeguards the identity of the users as their contact numbers are not shared with anyone from the pharmacists to the delivery boy.

14. Shipment tracking

The app should provide a user with a tracking id of his medicines, with the help of which a user can keep a tab on when the parcel will reach his address.

15. Multi-currency payment support

The app should provide the users with benefits of making purchases in any currency, as there might be visitors from other nations who would want to purchase medicine during their stay in another country.

16. Multi-lingual support

Since the customer base is wide and contains people from all zones, religions, and different languages, the app should be able to provide support to them by answering their queries in the language they understand.

17. CRM integration

Customer relationship management is very important in any business for its prosperity and better future prospects.

18. Order management integration

This feature allows the pharmacist to organize all the orders placed by the users through the app.

19. CMS for blogging

This allows the users or the pharmacist to write on the app.

20. Loyalty Program

Customers should always feel special and privileged of using any app or services. Therefore, the apps should offer them loyalty programs that allow them to earn redeemable points on each purchase made by them, or anything similar.

21. In-app map and navigation

This feature helps the delivery boy track the customer, easily reaching the user’s house for making the delivery. The customer can also

22. Artificial Intelligence enabled app

This enables a better experience for the user as they can use their voice commands, image search, recommendation to place orders and get updates on their orders. The patients are also able to explain their health concerns to the pharmacists through this feature.

23. ChatBot support

This is an AI-driven automated customer support system, which allows the users to get in touch with the app in case of any query.

24. Real-time analytics

This helps the admin keep a track of the real-time activities of their app such as active users, numbers of sales, cart abandonment, shipment, returns, and more. Real-time analytics also assist in decision making.

25. Role-based dashboards

This is for the different admin and departments as they can view real-time data relevant to the particular department such as accounts, marketing, sales, and more.

Required Tech Stack for Medicine Delivery App

Pharmacy app development upon the features it wants to include. However, we have listed down the major tech stacks required in building an app:

• Front end developer: Java, Swift, Angular, Java, CSS, HTML, React
• Platforms: Android, iOS, Web Application
• Back end developers: Python, Laravel, Node.js
• Push notifications, SMS, and in-app messaging: Batch
• Payment processing: PayPal API, Stripe API, and Braintree SDK
• Database: MongoDB
• Cloud Environment: Google Cloud, AWS
• Location tracking: MapKit framework for iOS, and Google Maps SDK for Android
• Social login: Facebook, Google, Twitter APIs

Ensure Required Medical Compliance & Integration

• Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)
• Health Level 7 International (HL7)
• Food and Drug Administration (FDA),
• U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
• HITECH?s Meaningful Use Stage 1 and 2 (MU-1 & MU-2)
• Integrated with EPA (Electronic Prior Authorization)
• Certified with EPCS (Electronic prescribing of a controlled substance)

Medicine Delivery App Development Team

• Front end developers
• Back end developers
• Project managers
• Android developer
• iOS developer
• UI/UX designer
• Quality analyst engineer

Cost of Developing a Medicine Delivery App

Take a look at the major factors that contribute to determining the price of a medicine delivery mobile app:

• Development Platform – Your choice of a platform to develop the e-pharmacy app on. This can either be iOS, Android, Windows, or a hybrid mobile app for multiple platforms.
• Development Timeline – The cost of app development also depends on the time you require to get the complete app.
• Development Partner Geo-Location – The location of your pharmacy app development solution provider also dictates the cost. The US/UK developers charge around $ 140 – $ 260 per hour, European developers charge £ 80 – £ 120 per hour, and the most reasonable app developers you can hire from Asia charge around $ 20 – $ 35 per hour.
• The Features: Features and functionalities that one is planning to integrate into the app also play a major role in determining its development cost. The more the features, the expensive the app will be. Limited features in an app will cost less to the app developers.
• 3rd Party Integration: For custom features, you need to integrate various 3rd party platform API’s which further increases the cost.
• Cost Estimation: If you include all the basic features then an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) will cost you around $ 16,000 – $ 30,000.

If you want to compete with the major players and want to add unique custom features to your medicine delivery app then based on 3rd party integrations and feature list the cost of app development can reach up to $ 2,00,000. Such an app definitely will have the potential to take your business to the next level.

Conclusion

On-demand apps are of the new trend nowadays. From ordering food online, to buying clothes, groceries, and now even medicines, every industry is entering the app world. With customers becoming digital and wanting to buy everything from the comfort of their home, these industries and businesses should pick up the pace to meet the demand. Medicine industry is one of the biggest industries among all which will thrive at all times. The medicine delivery apps have become famous and made their place in the app world and app stores in no time. So, if you are planning to launch such an app for your pharmacy business then get in touch with our experienced and professional team of mobile app developers.