"Internet + medicine", how to fight this war

Internet + medicine can be roughly divided into three modes as shown in the figure above, each mode has its own advantages and disadvantages.

Self-built e-commerce platform is a big black hole, lose your wife and lose your troops

Self-built e-commerce platform model, such as Jinxiang.com, Pharmacy.com, Jianke.com, etc., fall into this category Self-built B2C e-commerce platform model. In this mode of "connecting to the Internet", I must have seen the success of Taobao. After listening to Jack Ma's remarks that "if you can't understand it today, it will be too late tomorrow", the author here also has a piece of advice: "Don't rush to kill those who can't understand it." Enter, otherwise you will come out lying down." The self-built e-commerce platform is a series of traps, with many ambushes. One trouble leads to another. It not only needs to solve the dilemma encountered by the enterprise itself, but also resists powerful external opponents. Industry leaders who have built their own e-commerce platforms have found that there are far more problems than they imagined. They originally thought they were driving on a highway, but they turned out to be bumpy dirt roads. Not only did their speed slow down, but they also had to find ways to fill in the gaps. pit.

There are four major inherent flaws in the B2C platform built by enterprises.

1

Lack of team

As the saying goes, if you don’t have a diamond, you can’t do a porcelain job. If you want to do the Internet, someone must have a team. Pharmaceutical companies are a traditional industry with traditional talents who rely on channel operations to make their fortunes. All they have are traditional channel resources and traditional operations accumulated over the years. Such channels and resources are “of no use” to the Internet. Internet talents have Internet experience: How to position the platform? How to create an e-commerce platform? How to attract traffic to the platform? What features are needed? What kind of services and experiences are provided, etc., these are definitely not something that the big guys can just copy from Taobao.

To implement an e-commerce platform requires talents, and in today's society, talents are the scarcest and most expensive. Big guys who want to build their own pharmaceutical e-commerce B2C platform first need to prepare a large amount of funds specifically to recruit talents. A single tree cannot make a forest. They must also build a complete team, from technology to operations, from marketing to marketing. , from pre-sales to after-sales, etc., which accounts for a high cost.

2

Lack of funds

We will not discuss money matters in detail. Every enterprise has its own calculations. The funds required to build a self-built platform almost exceed the expectations of the big guys. To succeed, a platform requires more than tens of millions of funds: personnel wages, operating costs, marketing funds, etc. The cost of promotion and traffic will become the largest cost of the enterprise. , take the "618" e-commerce advertising war as an example. The marketing and promotion expenses of each e-commerce company are already astronomical. Otherwise, how could you see its promotion everywhere?

3

Lack of time

Time is an important key point that the bosses neglect. The traditional industry adheres to the model of big fish eating small fish, while the Internet industry plays a game of "fast fish eats slow fish". Don't care about the size, just speed. If you are slow, I will swallow you up. The rise of Taobao back then had a lot to do with the market environment at that time. Because there were not many competitors, there was plenty of time and a break, which allowed Taobao to grow slowly. In today’s market, you can’t wait to say you want to be an e-commerce company today and start operating online tomorrow. The competition between platforms is becoming more and more fierce. Not only are you fighting for talents and funds, but you are also fighting for time. This is no longer a Red Sea, but a bloody sea. ocean.

4

Lack of thinking

Internet thinking is the most fatal congenital flaw. It is the most basic application "tool" in the Internet industry. Without Internet thinking, it is impossible to do anything. Good e-commerce. The most important thing in Internet thinking is user thinking: taking users as the core of business operations, building a service system around users, service is marketing, and user interests are above all else. However, traditional pharmaceutical companies and pharmacies take the company itself as the core of their business and adhere to the theory of making good products and waiting for consumers to come to their doorsteps. In the current era, this is no longer very useful. If they do not take the initiative, they will be eliminated by the market.

The 1 billion bet between Gree Dong Mingzhu and Xiaomi Lei Jun is well known to women and children. In the author’s opinion, if the bet is on competition in traditional industries, Lei Jun will definitely lose miserably, and the bet happens to be on the Internet, so the outcome can be imagined. Know. The market is not owned by whoever has the money or shouts loudest, but by what the people want. Whoever understands the hearts of consumers and makes them happy will be the master of the market.

To sum up, it is almost impossible for pharmaceutical companies and pharmacies to build their own B2C e-commerce platforms: firstly, they cannot afford to consume astronomical amounts of funds; secondly, it is difficult to find talents and cannot achieve satisfactory results. Platform, thirdly, time is tight and self-built platforms cannot compete with other giants. Fourthly, the leaders of enterprises do not have Internet thinking, which will definitely interfere with the operation and development of the platform. These are all flaws, and they are hidden flaws. Over time, they will turn into internal wounds and destroy the e-commerce platform built by the company.

Cooperating with third-party B2C platforms is a big pit. It looks very glamorous but is actually buried deep inside

At present, the well-known third-party pharmaceutical B2C platforms in China are Tmall Medical Store and Jingdong Medical Store. . For pharmaceutical giants who want to access the Internet, they appear to be a huge traffic entrance, which means unlimited space and customers. However, this is not the case in reality. Once you enter, you will find that it is a big pit.

If the pharmaceutical giants are unwilling to build their own platforms due to the above reasons, then cooperation with a third-party pharmaceutical B2C platform is the next best solution.

However, once you enter the e-commerce platform, you will find that the first challenge you face is the Red Sea price war. For pharmaceutical companies, it is a stable profit source model when drugs reach consumers through channels, and they do not need to pay more. After connecting to the Internet, they first need to build an online management team, and then lower drug prices. .

There are four major challenges for enterprises to cooperate with third-party pharmaceutical B2C platforms.

1

Price War

The third-party pharmaceutical B2C platform is a typical representative of information flattening. It completely removes centralization and transforms traditional pharmaceutical sales channels into The central advantage is completely obliterated. In a network without space and time, only price is the only factor that attracts consumers. Then, pharmaceutical companies or pharmacies can only win customers by lowering the online sales price of drugs. Doing so requires squeezing their own drug profits. For the same medicines, those with lower prices have first-level advantages. Such competition seems to be an endless cycle, reducing profits and engaging in price wars. If there is no profit, it cannot afford to fight. The so-called Internet connection is just jumping from one physical Red Sea market to another virtual Red Sea market.

2

Traditional consumption habits

Drugs are a special consumer product. The first is the issue of drug quality fidelity. According to a survey by Tencent Penguin Think Tank, more than 60% of The biggest concern among pharmaceutical e-commerce users is the fear of buying fake products online. This concept requires a lot of long-term consumer education to get through. In addition, the policy prohibits online sales of prescription drugs. Although the policy advocates the separation of medicines and the outflow of prescriptions, this road is extremely difficult, and the only OTC drug market no longer has much sweetness. Finally, medicines are time-sensitive. After a consumer purchases medicine and waits for logistics at home, the disease will have healed by the time the medicine is received. Pharmaceutical e-commerce challenges consumers’ traditional consumption habits.

3

Balancing interests

Although lowering drug prices can save a lot of drug distribution costs, it will harm the interests of distribution channels at all levels. From the perspective of sales channels, what pharmaceutical companies are doing is "stabbing a knife in the back". In serious cases, there may be resistance or even rebellion in the sales channels, which will seriously damage the brand and reputation of pharmaceutical companies. In addition, competition among pharmaceutical companies is fierce, and the market Once a small empty stream appears, people will take the opportunity to squeeze in. The collapse of the embankment is often caused by small gaps.

4

Promotion fee

After going online, not only did the price of medicines decrease, but a large amount of ongoing expenses were spent on promotion. It has become commonplace in the industry to swipe orders, build reputation, cheat, and buy advertising space. If you don’t do it, no one will care about it, so you have to bite the bullet and spend money to do it, and do it continuously. The cost is mainly spent on drug search positions, on-site advertising spaces, event promotions, etc. The cost will not be reduced over time.

To sum up, if pharmaceutical companies and pharmacies want to cooperate with third-party pharmaceutical B2C platforms, they will gain a large amount of customer traffic. At the same time, they will also enter another virtual Red Sea battlefield where policies and consumption The habitual gap also needs to be cultivated over a long period of time.

The cooperative pharmaceutical O2O platform is a road, growing slowly but steadily

The self-built O2O platform of a pharmaceutical company or pharmacy is just equivalent to an additional home delivery service, which is different from the original business There is no substantial change in access to the Internet. Instead, an additional cost of the delivery team will be invested, and the benefits obtained are also unknown. Therefore, choosing a free third-party drug O2O platform is currently the safest way to access the Internet. The pharmaceutical O2O model will not produce an explosive and rapid surge, but it can continue to grow. Steady marketing will gradually influence consumers and change their consumption behavior habits.

Pharmacies’ cooperation with third-party pharmaceutical O2O platforms has three major manifestations.

1

Free

There is also a free lunch in the world. At present, domestic third-party drug O2O platforms: drug comparison, drug delivery, etc. are all free of charge. This kind of pharmaceutical O2O platform belongs to the "light model". It relies on pharmacies to guide online user traffic to offline pharmacies, and has a more direct effect on pharmacies. Yaogaili cooperates with pharmacies, focusing on delivering medicines to your door within one hour. The core is "fast" delivery, and the price of medicines is only 20-10% off; Yaogaili cooperates directly with pharmacies, focusing on saving 50% of the cost of prescription drugs, and bypassing the ban on sales of prescription drugs online. Due to the policy gap, pharmacists deliver directly to your door. Pharmaceutical companies or pharmacies that cooperate with this kind of O2O pharmaceutical platform do not need to build their own teams. They can directly use the resources of its platform to attract traffic to pharmacies and wait for consumers to come to buy medicines.

2

Strengthening centralization

The pharmaceutical O2O platform has an innate advantage, which is exactly the opposite of the B2C platform, and that is the advantage of centralization. The pharmaceutical O2O platform relies on pharmacies and is centered on the pharmacy's geographical location to serve surrounding consumers. It virtually strengthens the pharmacy's geographical advantage and expands the pharmacy's operating radius by three kilometers, allowing more consumers to find the pharmacy. In addition, this model of using online traffic and offline transactions allows consumers to have reliable trust in the source of medicines. Pharmaceutical O2O amplifies the regional operations of pharmacies without competing in the Red Ocean. This is the real demand of pharmacies - the blue ocean market.

3

The prescription market has huge potential

According to predictions, the sales scale of China’s pharmaceutical medical institutions (hospitals) in 2015 will be approximately 1.2 trillion yuan, while in China Prescription drugs account for more than 80% of pharmaceutical terminal sales revenue, and are mainly sold to medical institutions. It is expected that the market size of prescription drugs will be nearly 1 trillion in 2015. This cake is too big, and the temptation is too great. If we can tear a small opening in the hospital prescription drug market, we will have obtained a big gold mine.

To sum up, when pharmaceutical companies, pharmacies and third-party pharmaceutical O2O platforms cooperate, they may be able to obtain a large amount of online customer traffic and strengthen their core advantages, but it does not rule out other way to complete the cooperation of Internet + medicine.

Editor’s comments

“Internet + medicine” is a protracted battle. Pharmaceutical companies and pharmacies must constantly observe market dynamics and national policy changes to make correct responses. Able to stand firm in the torrent of the Internet.