Author: Shang Feng.
2023 Post Sprint Competition
It's time for the year-end wrap-up again!I just went out and had a chat with a friend who had been friends for many years but had never been able to see each other, and I found a tea room near the high-speed rail station to chat, and one of the topics was: How many brick-and-mortar pharmacies will close their doors in 2024!
His idea is that the closing rate is about 20%, the reason is that according to the "standard value", the lower limit of the number of people served by a pharmacy is 3,000 people, and now the number of physical pharmacies in the country has reached 670,000, and the number of people serving a single store has dropped to nearly 2,000 people, and it will definitely return to normal values in the future, that is, there will be a closure rate of more than 20%. He also estimated that the start time should start after the peak sales season in May.
Let's analyze his judgment together, how likely is it?
Let's talk about the number of people served in a single store first!The standard of 3,000 people was introduced around 2010, but there is no scientific explanation for what the basis is, but it was generally recognized by the decision-makers of pharmacy management at that time, and at least applied in practice.
However, compared with that time, the current environment has changed a lot, mainly because the participation rate of medical insurance has been greatly improved, there is no data, but more than 10 years ago, medical insurance participants are still employees of better welfare units have high-end treatment, and now it is a general treatment, coupled with the general rise in the income level of residents, the expenditure available for health and disease may also increase, whether the original single store service number continues to be useful, it is worth **.
This is a good change factor for pharmacies. Of course, there is also a bad change, that is, the actual business scope of pharmacies is becoming smaller. Why is it the actual business scope?Compared with 10 years ago, perhaps the business license of the pharmacy still retains food and other non-drugs, but in the actual operation, due to the increasingly strict control of the medical insurance department on the medical insurance card, especially the gradual improvement of technical control measures, the loophole of the pharmacy using customer medical insurance funds to sell non-drugs has basically disappeared, of course, it will not disappear completely, but the things hidden in the ground, the knowledge is limited, and the amount will not be so large!
In the years after 2010, one of the most important themes in the industry was how non-pharmaceutical sales broke through the 40% ceiling. Now, there is no display restriction of health food products, because they cannot be purchased with medical insurance funds, as well as the market sharing of social e-commerce, there is generally a 50% decline in sales, and the medicine and food homologous Chinese herbal medicines that are plagued by prescription problems and commodity attribute problems are also divided under the market of social e-commerce, there is no exact overall data, but the decline is also very obvious.
Coupled with the online diversion of household medical devices such as blood pressure monitors and blood glucose meters, it has also led to a very large decline in the sales of such goods in pharmacies, and the quasi-medical devices that have occupied a certain market share in pharmacies in the past, such as foot baths and massagers, have almost completely withdrawn from the physical pharmacy market. In addition, family planning supplies and related products with strong privacy have just formed a certain sales scale in pharmacies and have also turned online.
Of course, there is also a potential market sharer - pharmaceutical e-commerce. Why do you say it's a potential market sharer?Mainly because whether it is Jingdong or Ali, in the sales of pure drugs, there must be physical stores as support, although it seems that the sales scale is very large, but the largest number of goods are still the best than the traditional physical pharmacies, pure online pharmacies based on online operations, the actual drug sales scale is not large.
However, with the gradual expansion of the scale of online sales, the online platform with strong data is actually easy to flop their own business, in fact, they have basically completed the reserve of relevant talents, as well as the node construction of the part-time distribution center, once the national medical insurance is formed, the construction of the node physical store is completed, and its market share has changed from the current surface data to real self-sales data, which is the biggest impact on physical pharmacies.
So, my view is that the beginning of 2024 could be a peak in terms of the number of brick-and-mortar pharmacies, and then start to turn downwards from there. As long as it is not self-defeating, resulting in the rupture of the capital chain, there will be no major wave of bankruptcies. However, once the implementation of the provincial medical insurance co-ordination has gone smoothly, that is, without significantly increasing medical insurance expenditures, the unification of medical insurance treatment has been realized, it is very likely to promote the national medical insurance co-ordination, at that time, the online drug data that is now mainly supported by physical pharmacies will be mainly completed by online sales entities, and physical pharmacies may really have 20% to 30% of the closure.
However, for practitioners, there is no need to worry too much, there will also be emerging market entities to undertake this part of the business, as long as you are very good, you can still find a suitable position for yourself, maybe the income will be higher!However, if you're not good enough, you may need to change careers!