SEPTEMBER 20218BUDDING BIZZOnline pharmacy 1mg, which is now majority owned by Tata Group, plans to offer express delivery (typically within an hour) of medicines to customers.The platform has already begun delivering medicines within 4-5 hours of placing an order in parts of New Delhi and Gurugram, and will expand the service into an express delivery vertical across the country.While this would be one of the first significant product launches from 1mg following the Tata acqui-sition, on-demand delivery of medi-cines within an hour or two has been a difficult space to operate in due to higher operating costs and average lower ticket sizes of orders.According to industry insiders, the average order size on e-phar-macy platforms is Rs 1,200-1,500, with express delivery costing Rs 600. If the platform does not have a minimum purchase size filter, it could be even lower."They (1mg) are keen to bring the one-hour delivery to consum-ers. There is a lot of demand for it, which has only increased after the pandemic as people need various medicines and healthcare-related products in quick time. They are working on expediting the launch," a person aware of the matter said.While the pandemic has in-creased demand for medicine deliv-eries, 1mg is also looking to expand its diagnostics labs business, where it will set up its own facilities as well as have a marketplace of third-party labs. It currently owns three laboratories. This is part of 1 mg's plan to become a more comprehen-sive healthcare platform than just a place to order medications."E-medicine delivery has ben-efited from the pandemic and con-sumers now value faster delivery more than ever. That could work for express delivery this time cou-pled with other factors," the person aware of 1mg's plans said.Others in the space are also ven-turing into diagnostics. Last week PharmEasy was in the fray to acquire Suburban Diagnostics, whose busi-ness is said to have grown signifi-cantly as a result of the coronavirus outbreak.Myra, a Bengaluru-based startup backed by Matrix Partners, was pri-marily focused on one-hour delivery of medicines but was forced to sell itself to Medlife in 2019 due to its inability to sustain operations with limited capital. Medlife was later ac-quired by PharmEasy, and the com-bined entity discontinued its express delivery service.Netmeds, which is owned by Re-liance Industries, has a standard de-livery time of 24-48 hours. Based on local lockdown rules, this could be as long as 72 hours on some platforms. ONLINE PHARMACY 1MG PLANS EXPRESS MEDICINE DELIVERY AFTER TATA DEAL
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