How To Build A Pharmacy And Healthcare B2B Marketplace

Of the many disruptions of COVID-19, one of the few positive ones was the hypergrowth of online pharmacy and telemedicine.

Necessitated by the demands of the unprecedented times, the wholesale pharmacy and healthcare segment needed to react quickly to the fast-changing dynamics of the situation. The most significant pain point of mobilising resources in such times was the fragmented and largely offline manufacturing and distribution channels.

Taking a cue from the success of retail ePharmacy chains, wholesale pharmaceuticals and healthcare segments also went for rapid ecommerce adoption.  

Here is how the global ePharma market has grown in recent years;

• 38% growth in ePharmacy market from 2019 to 2020
• $60.99 Billion is the value of the global E-Pharmacy market in 2021
• 3.6 X growth forecast for the online pharmacy market from 2021 to 2028
• 20.1 % is the CAGR of the online pharmacy market for the forecast period 2022-2028

Source: Grand View Research, Statista

The pharmaceutical market is all set for steady growth and going online can accelerate the growth of healthcare companies that cater to diverse categories like health-based services, medicines, surgical equipment, testing kits, patient support equipment etc. 

Building a B2B marketplace and creating your brand presence can be your gateway to success if you strategise business expansion and rely on future-ready solutions.

Why Enterprise Healthcare brands should build their own B2B marketplace

Retail ePharma brands have built a strong market presence in recent years. The pharmaceutical and health care sector has witnessed an unprecedented boom especially during and after the pandemic thanks to greater awareness among individuals about the importance of having a healthy lifestyle. 

Enterprise medicine and healthcare brands can unleash their growth potential by starting a B2B marketplace that onboards pharma manufacturers, distributors and other health care related service providers on their marketplace website.

Creating their own ePharma online marketplace has the following benefits for enterprise brands:

• Align and group the fragmented wholesale pharma segment on a single platform
• Easy to onboard diverse vendors, manufacturers, distributors etc. from different healthcare segments
• Leverage automated and modern business processes to manage and control business efficiently
• Huge savings on CapEx, staffing, sales rep etc.
• Easy to persuade industry bigwigs ( brand owners, pharma companies) to become clients
• Reach a wider market with diverse medicine brands and sellers on your B2B marketplace
• Build brand value and recognition with presence across multiple digital channels
• Make sales cycles faster with automation and self service 
• Experiemnt with different business models on the same marketplace website using cutting edge B2B ecommerce solutions 
• Get better understanding and data driven insights on customers and pharmaceutical markets

This list does not end here, businesses building their wholesale ePharma marketplace can also go beyond borders and build a global presence. With India being touted as the “Pharmacy of the world”, Indian generic medicine manufacturers and distributors have an even better chance of business expansion by building their own ePharma wholesale portal.

What is the best way to build your B2B Marketplace for Wholesale Pharmacy Business

While building an ePharma marketplace for wholesale business seems to be the ideal solution to growing your business, building an online marketplace of this scale can be a mammoth task if done from scratch.

Building a wholesale ePharma multi-seller website from scratch 

Here is what building a healthcare marketplace from scratch would look like;

• Set up experienced IT team that understands your requirements 
• Invest time and resources in deciding hosting and other technical aspects
• Spend time in iterative development and bug-fixing cycles
• Regularly invest in upgrading the software, features and functionalities
• Investment in maintaining IT infrastructure and team to take care of your ePharma B2B Marketplace

In a nutshell, we clearly see the number of resources and effort that will be needed to build a viable solution.

Turnkey B2B ecommerce solutions to create a wholesale ePharma marketplace

Relying on a feature-rich turnkey wholesale marketplace builder can be a better alternative. Just compare how it shortens the development process;

• Choose from a number of available enterprise solutions to build an online marketplace for your large-scale pharmaceutical business
• Get battle-tested solutions that reduce development and testing time and help go to market faster
• Get ongoing support and upgrades which free you from the burdens of maintaining the IT infrastructure
• Hire a small IT team that can keep everyday functionalities running in coordination with your marketplace B2B ecommerce solutions providers
• Easy to adapt to dynamic market changes leveraging the ready-to-use solutions offered by your B2B platform provider

However, it is imperative to choose the multi vendor website builder with due diligence and ensure that you are going with a flexible, scalable and technologically advanced platform. The solution provider that you choose to build your ePharma multi vendor portal should have B2B features and easy customization options to build your tailor-made solutions. Also, there should be plans that suit your current budget and do have provisions to accommodate your business growth.

How StoreHippo helps you build your Pharma and Healthcare Wholesale B2B Marketplace

Looking forward to creating your niche in the wholesale pharmacy segment? Want to disrupt the business-to-business healthcare space with your very own B2B multi seller marketplace? Wondering if there exists an ecommerce platform that can fulfil your requirements and also have scope to let you quickly adapt to the dynamic market and client demands?

Well, that’s where StoreHippo B2B ecommerce solutions come into play!

StoreHippo’s plug-and-play solutions have been powering enterprise B2B multi vendor websites for enterprise brands. This is how StoreHippo facilitates building and launching a medicine B2B marketplace for enterprise pharma companies:

• Plug and play multi-vendor solutions for B2B and other use cases of marketplace websites along with over 300 built-in features 
• Customizable B2B marketplace solutions powered by advanced MACH architecture 
• Enables building hyper-personalised solutions using the decoupled headless architecture
• Omnichannel solutions to connect and engage with pharmacy clients across multiple touchpoints
• Mobile-first solutions with built-in mobile apps builder, mobile admin for concerned parties like admins-sellers-delivery agents etc, PWA stores that work like B2B marketplace apps 
• Enterprise-grade B2B features like custom forms, multi-pricing, restricted login, audit logs, RFQ, MOQ, tax engine, comprehensive vendor management modules, whitelabelling, built-in and custom invoicing etc.
• Enhanced capabilities to run multiple business models from the same platform say, medicine  companies can cater to their wholesale and retail clients using multiple storefronts on the same B2B ecommerce platform
• 120+ built in integrations along with capabilities to have seamless integrations with preferred software and service providers
• Native solutions like multilingual, multi currency payments and invoicing to facilitate global expansion of your B2B marketplace
• Gamut of marketing tools like discount engine, blog engine, dynamic page builder, SEO-friendly platform etc.
• Frictionless payments with a wide range of of payment solutions like pre-integrated payment gateways, mobile wallets, B2B wallet etc.
• Automated logistics solutions with 30+ integrated logistics partners and built-in delivery boy management module

With StoreHippo pharmacy and healthcare brands can build a variety of B2B ePharma portals to brings manufacturers, distributorers, procurement agents and other healthcare providers on a common marketplace website. 

Complete business plan to build a wholesale Pharma B2B Marketplace 

Each enterprise business is unique in its requirement and needs custom solutions to cater to its specific needs. The best thing about storeHippo business-to-business solutions is that it offers you the agility and creative control to mould the platform at the backend as well as the front end.  

Using our tried and tested solutions for different industries and business models, you can easily create your healthcare and pharmaceutical marketplace.

Let's get started and see how you can quickly build and launch your pharmacy B2B multi vendor website with StoreHippo: 

Step 1: Decide whether you just want to go for wholesale business or would like to experiment with other business models also going forward. Accordingly, list down the features and functionalities you would need on your ePharma marketplace website.

Step 2: Since medicines and healthcare is a heavily regulated industries, get all your paperwork, licenses, government clearances etc. in place. Check the same for all vendors, sellers, manufacturers etc. you plan to onboard.

Step 3: Contact StoreHippo B2B marketplace experts and discuss your requirements with them to zero down on your subscription plan and customization costs if any.

Step 4: Choose a  domain name and buy your domain. Pro-tip, keep your domain name simple, easy to remember and relevant to your industry or something that generates curiosity. 

Step 5: Choose an industry-appropriate theme from our 100+ themes library or customize your themes using the inbuilt drag-and-drop tools of StoreHippo’s theme designer. 

Step 6: Set up your vendor registration page. Make vendor onboarding easy and seamless and quickly approve or reject your vendors from the admin dashboard. 

Step 7: Enable medicine and healthcare providers to manage their business independently by giving each of them their separate admin dashboards. Get a variety of catalogues uploaded on your marketplace website by your suppliers, vendors and manufacturers. to all your onboarded sellers, distributors, suppliers, manufacturers etc. and get their products uploaded to your B2B ecommerce marketplace website. 

Step 8:  Easily integrate the existing software and service providers used by your business or your vendors into your B2B marketplace. Use your existing software for CRM, ERP, POS, accounting etc. or integrate with the best-in-breed software to build an out-of-box ecommerce environment for your pharmacy marketplace brand.

Step 9: Decide and set up your payment solutions. You can choose from StoreHippo’s 60+ pre-integrated payment solutions or use the payment gateways of your choice. Set up mobile wallets or B2B credit solutions. 

Step 10: Use StoreHippo’s built-in B2B features to automate and streamline the ordering process on your B2B marketplace. Use differential pricing, RFQ, wholesale and retail pricing, custom forms, MOQ, seller-admin-customer chat etc. to shorten your sales cycles.  

Step 11: Leverage m-commerce by building your wholesale pharmacy marketplace app (iOS+ Android) using the built-in mobile apps builder. Get ready-to-use mobile apps for your sellers, delivery boys, admins etc so they can run the business on the go. Quickly convert your marketplace website into PWA to reach clients and vendors even on entry-level devices.  

Step 12: Set up your logistics and supply chain services, use StoreHippo’s 30+ pre-integrated logistics partners or use your own fleet of delivery boys and manage them using delivery boy management solutions from StoreHippo.

Step 13: Set up your brand pages across social platforms and run campaigns to create awareness about the launch of your B2B marketplace.

Step 14: Build a strong support team with multi-channel support for your vendors, sellers, clients etc.

Step 15: Test your pharmaceutical and healthcare marketplace end to end and you are ready to go live.  

That is the blueprint of your step-wise business plan to set up your wholesale pharmacy and healthcare marketplace.

Power your business with agile and cutting-edge StoreHippo B2B ecommerce solutions that keep you ahead of the competition.

How to attract more customers to your Pharmacy and Healthcare Multi Vendor Website

While StoreHippo makes it easy to build and launch a future-ready ePharma marketplace, making your brand a success needs strategic planning. The first step towards building a successful business is attracting more customers to your brand marketplace.

Here are a few tried and tested tips to attract more customers to your medicine wholesale marketplace website:

• Create different landing pages and optimize and localize them for your targeted pharmacy clients
• Onboard diverse vendors who create rich catalogues on your B2B marketplace
• Strategically manage differential pricing for different buyer groups based on their purchase volume, frequency, brand value etc.
• Make buying medicines easier by introducing automation and self-servicing at multiple levels
• Leverage content that engages customers and helps in solving their common pain points 
• Invest in strategic marketing to target different groups with different offers which may range from discounts to free samples to customized pricing, shipping etc.
• Encourage your existing clients to join your referral or affiliate program and help in growing your brand

With future-ready B2B ecommerce solutions like StoreHippo at your disposal you can set up your marketplace for success and get a lot of features and tools to grow your customer base.

Conclusion

Raving to build your own B2B marketplace for wholesale pharmacy business? Want to explore new markets and reach audiences beyond borders? 

With StoreHippo’s well-rounded B2B eCommerce platform, creating your own niche is possible! Get ready to build, run and grow your medicine and healthcare business with a trusted enterprise platform that offers 360-degree solutions for large-scale businesses. From helping you in managing your vendor network to enabling you to diversify to D2C and B2B2C marketplace models, StoreHippo has you covered. Whatever your business ideas and goals, we have a ready-to-use solution for it which can be easily customized for your unique needs.

Claim your share in the booming wholesale pharmacy segment, and build your B2B multi-vendor website right away. Get started by booking StoreHippo's free demo right away.