On the afternoon of Friday, June 23, 2023, Mr. Quoc Toan – founder of Van Tay Media was invited to attend the “Nhân chuỗi nhà thuốc” (Expand pharmacy chain) event, organized by Mr. Anh Ngoc – CEO Pharmadi, who is also a customer of Van Tay Media. The article below aims to share in a concise way the key highlights of the event full of knowledge and practical experience from experts in the industry.

Mr. Toàn – founder Vân Tay Media and Mr. Anh Ngọc – CEO of Pharmadi

Vietnam has about 60,000 drugstores, of which chain drugstores account for about 10%, showing that opportunities and playgrounds for chains are still very attractive. The battle between traditional drugstores and chains, as well as between chains, has just begun. Chain drugstores can apply the framework and strategies of retail chains.

Some moments at event

With Mr.Khoa and Mrs. Tuyền – Founder of Vivita

At the end of June, I had the opportunity to attend the event “Nhân chuỗi nhà thuốc, bán hàng đa kênh” (Expand pharmacy chain, multi-channel sales) organized by Pharmadi and partners, and I have some interesting new insights about this industry. Below are some highlights that I brought back after the event. Some data, charts, and information I’m not sure that I can publicly share, so I won’t share them. Thank you to the speakers for sharing useful and practical information. Some general information:

Some general information:

1. Before 2018, the largest chain was Pharmacity with about 100 pharmacies. Now this chain has nearly 1000 pharmacies, followed by Long Châu, which recently celebrated “1234 pharmacies” event.
2. Chain pharmacies are growing strongly in the South.
3. Structural shift: from online to offline, from offline to online, the hybrid model is becoming more and more popular.
4. Shopping experience at chain pharmacies is enhanced thanks to customer loyalty programs, care plans, promotion programs, display, etc.
5. Analyze customer profiles and journeys to optimize touchpoints, for example, Long Châu even opens booths right on the pedestrian walkways to sell bottled water and related products.
6. Unify multichannel data to optimize experience.
7. Attract new customers with large promotion programs, trade marketing.
8. Build customer trust through consistent care plans with expertise.
9. Difficulties in training, need high expertise.

Keys finding:

1. “Cutting doses” is still a problem for discussion. Pharmacists may think that the dose is not enough, while customers want to quickly recover from their illnesses, so they often buy fewer doses than prescribed.
2. When expanding chains, it is not simply copying store 2 from store 1, but it requires specific adjustments for target customers in the area.
3. Balance management capacity with scale, opening too many pharmacies with poor management can easily lead to a major failure.
4. Can sell on e-commerce channels on e-commerce platforms, with products of moderate value, sold in large volumes.
5. Choose suitable products with wide coverage and few barriers.
6. A typical journey: Buy for cheap -> Buy for basic needs -> Buy for increasing needs -> Buy multiple times.
7. “Building a house on one’s own land” by building a separate website, implementing SEO/SEM to attract traffic.

Developing chain pharmacies brings many new opportunities, but above all, it improves the quality of pharmacies and customer experience. People who go to pharmacies nowadays do not just buy medicine for their illnesses, but also have a need for health care under the guidance of professionals.