Will tech companies destroy local pharmacies as they enter the competitive retail health care space? Will $500 billion worth of prescriptions go from brick and mortar pharmacies to online stores? We don’t think so.
Hear more from our CEO Jonathan (Yonatan) Adiri as he analyzes why local pharmacies will withstand these changes and continue providing irreplaceable services to loyal customers.
Video Transcript
Online shopping has forever changed the traditional retail landscape. Let’s face it, our kids and our parents don’t shop the same way. Amazon, the driving force behind that transition, is now entering health care. Last year, it outbid Walmart in purchasing PillPack.
So are clicks going to kill bricks? Are 500 billion dollars worth of prescription drugs coming out of brick and mortar into the digital space? I don’t think so.
Predominantly, I don’t think so because our partnerships with pharmacies worldwide teach us that they have three major strengths that are very hard to digitize:
1) Pharmacies are local.
2) Pharmacists have fantastic expertise in delivering clinical-grade health care at the store.
3) Pharmacists are trusted.
So when you add all these three up, it becomes clear that this process of adaptation might end up with more and more services being delivered in-store while being digitally offered.
That transition is pretty clear. We’re already seeing Walgreens offering Find Care Now through their digital systems while delivering care in-store. Now we’re seeing CVS committing to transitioning 1,500 stores over the next two years into greater health care services in-store. Walmart isn’t sitting idle. It’s starting to roll out 10,000 square feet centers in-store nationwide.
So with these hard to digitize qualities, I think it’s very clear that tech will not necessarily kill pharmacies, but rather empower pharmacists in delivering clinical-grade services in-store.
