Brick and mortar pharmacy stores are a talk of old times, now people are heading towards the online world. Now people are looking to set up their online pharmacy to be in the race among other businesses, and if you are among one of them, it’s a great step. And if you are not, it is something to be worried about.

It is not just a choice anymore whether you want to set up your online pharmacy or not, it’s a need and a must in these times. If you won’t match the pace in setting up your online pharmacy, you will lack behind and eventually not succeed. 

We are not putting out something negative, it’s just a wake-up call for you. If you are thinking that setting up an online pharmacy will cost you huge bucks then you are somewhere wrong. It will not burn your pocket, you just need to pay the basic costing that is required and you will be good to go. So today we will tell you about the minimal costing you have to bear while setting up your online pharmacy. Let’s get started!

• Getting Your Licence (Rs. 50,000)

The first step towards setting up your online pharmacy store is to get a license. India has very strict laws when it comes to the pharmacy business. Though it’s not that difficult, we will tell you how you can get it and what the cost will be.

You have to visit the online portal of the Central Government of India and from there you have to apply for the grant of registration for the e-pharmacy. You have to register in Form 18 (AA) of the Central Licensing Authority. To complete the registration you have to pay a sum of Rs. 50,000 and assert that you will comply with provisions of the Information Technology Act, 2000 (21 of 2000). 

It is also stated that the new e-pharmacies have to register themselves with the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization. CDSCO is India’s apex drug regulator and central licensing authority. The license will be valid for 3 years and if anyone wants to continue, they can renew the license.

• Setting Up Your Online Pharmacy Store (Rs. 60,000- Rs. 70,000)

As a physical retailer, you always want your shop to be presentable and look well managed. Same like that you also have to set up your online shop. We could divide this point into several points but to keep it minimal yet understandable, we are accumulating all this into one point.

• Domain Name

The first step towards setting up your online pharmacy is to choose a domain name. There are several sites that offer domain names at a low cost. Suppose your store name is ‘abc’, so your domain name could be ‘www.abc.com’ or ‘www.abc.in’, or anything else. Here the ‘.com’ or ‘.in’ are the domains. If you take the example of GoDaddy, you can get a domain name at Rs. 849 for the first year, and for the subsequent years you can get it at Rs. 1049 only.

• Web Page Set-up

Secondly, you have to make a web page set-up, which includes the landing page, the article page, etc. So you need to first set up this page as to how you want your online pharmacy store to look. What is the USP that you want to highlight on the landing page? The answer to these questions will help you in setting up your web page, and a web developer will be a great help here. It takes an extensive amount of work, so it ranges from an amount of Rs. 50,000- Rs. 70,000.

• Website Hosting

Thirdly, you will need website hosting. The main job of a web hosting provider is to get your website live on the internet so that people can access it. In simple terms, it means handling your website while traffic (visitors) comes to your online pharmacy. At GoDaddy, you can get it at as low as Rs. 199/month. In a nutshell, the range is Rs. 199- Rs. 1699 a month.

• Hiring A Social Media Manager (Rs. 20,000- Rs. 30,000)

If you want to be one step ahead of your fellow competitors, then you should hire a social media manager. Having your presence on social media is gaining significant importance in these times. The reason behind this is that most of your online customers hail from the age group of 16-40, and most of them are present on social media. So to engage them on your site, you need to have a good presence in the social media world. Hiring them will not burn a hole in your pocket, as the average salary of a social media manager is around Rs. 25,000.

Hiring a social media manager will be a great help for you in this scenario. They are the ones who know all the things about how to attract the people on social media towards your page. This will help greatly in your marketing and advertising part. You will see a huge spike in sales by adopting this point.

• Stocking Up Your Inventory (Around Rs. 1 lakh)

This is not something different that you usually do. After all the aforementioned procedures of setting up your online presence, you have to head towards the selling point. So to increase your product sale, you first need to have products. You can invest up to Rs. 1,00,000 in your inventory. However, it will be returned as soon as your product sells, and online presence makes it easier.

You must stock up your inventory so that you can meet up the demand of the consumers. One plus point of having an online pharmacy here is you can have analytics on what product is in huge demand and what is not. And so you can stock up in the same manner. Also, the cost of goods sold online and physically has to be the same. So you need not worry about understanding the different prices.

• Warehouse Cost (Rs. 5 lakh)

Now that you have spent a good amount on filling up your inventory. You now have to adhere to the cost of the warehouse as you need a place where all the products will be kept. A warehouse is simply a place where you can stock up all your products safely. If you are already a physical retailer, you may not face this cost as you must already have a warehouse to store your physical shop products.

In India, the warehouse costing is very different in accordance with the places. A warehouse at the periphery of a city will not cost you as much as that in the center of the city. According to the Industry key players, setting up a warehouse could cost Rs. 600- Rs. 3,000 a square foot in India.

• Cost of Human Resource (Rs. 60,000- Rs. 80,000)

Human resources are the pillar of any successful business. Without them, one could not work effectively and efficiently. So in the online business also, you need human resources to work on several parts.

For example, you need a software manager to help you in overseeing and coordinating the people, resources, and processes required to deliver new software or upgrade existing products. An average salary given to a software manager in India is around Rs. 50,000.

Another example is of the major component of any business, i.e. the delivery one. You need to hire delivery agents to deliver goods to your customers ASAP. Nowadays businesses are offering delivery time as low as 10 minutes, so you need to focus on this part the most. Delivery agent average costing will be around Rs. 10,000- Rs. 15,000.

• Packaging Cost (Rs. 2,000- Rs. 3,000)

As a physical retailer, the cost incurred on the packaging is very less when compared to the online store. Sometimes, the customers bring their bags or the size of medicines aren’t that big to have a full package covering. But in the case of an online pharmacy store, you have to adhere to the cost of packaging.

The average packaging cost will be around Rs. 2,500. It will include the cartoon boxes, labeling, plastic sheet costs. To make your products safely reach your customer, you have to bear this cost.

This is all you need to set up an online pharmacy. Now you must have understood it is not something huge and minimal costing would help you acquire an online presence for your pharmacy. We are saying minimal because it is an essential investment that you will be making for your business which is going to bear fruitful results in the near future. So without wasting any more time, just set up your online pharmacy now.