The growth of pharma e-commerce and new retail

The round table at Netcomm Focus Digital Health & Pharma 2024 offered a detailed overview of the technologies, services, innovations and best practice reshaping pharma e-commerce and new retail. Chaired by Giulio Finzi, Senior Advisor at Netcomm Services, it brought together experts including Giacomo Bettazzi (Trustpilot), Eliana Martinotti (Barò Cosmetics), Osvaldo Mauro (Profiter) and Alessandro Villa (Viatris).

The discussion brought out a range of concrete perspectives, underlining how different geographical, historical and regulatory contexts shape the adoption and growth of online commerce in the pharma and beauty sectors.

Key factors in the growth of pharma e-commerce

Understanding how competitive a country is in this sector means considering four fundamental elements:

• What can be sold online: regulation defines the limits of what can be commercialised.

• Who can sell online: operator eligibility varies from country to country.

• Promotion and regulation: the ability to promote medicines and parapharmaceuticals depends on local approval processes.

• Technological enablers: tools such as e-prescription, quick commerce and live commerce are transforming the market, but they require widespread rollout and genuine penetration into the healthcare system.

Online pharmacy in Italy, between regulation and bureaucracy

Some regions, such as Latin America and northern Europe (Sweden, Norway, Denmark), show greater regulatory openness towards the growth of the online pharmacy ecosystem, while the Mediterranean area is still lagging behind.

In Italy, for example, online sales are permitted only for non-prescription and over-the-counter medicines, excluding anything requiring a doctor's prescription. Only authorised pharmacies and parapharmacies may operate online, subject to registration with the Ministry of Health, and further formalities are required, such as the mandatory display of a national identifying logo.

These bureaucratic constraints limit the adoption and growth of pharmaceutical e-commerce compared with countries that have more flexible regulation. It is a question of fundamental importance, with a real impact on Italian citizens.

The convergence of online and offline

On the subject of artificial intelligence, we started from the market's need to drive efficiency where volumes are growing, where transaction frequency is growing, and where money is being lost along the way.

The words of Osvaldo Mauro, co-founder of Profiter and a long-standing tech entrepreneur, introduce a theme that ran through the debate: the importance of integrating online and offline channels.

• Efficiency: as volumes and transactions grow, as seen in other markets, optimising processes to reduce economic waste becomes crucial. Integrating machine learning algorithms, alongside specialist pharmacy management software, represents a significant shift in the management of stock and supply chains, delivering concrete benefits both in running the pharmacy and in the warehouse.

• Omnichannel: many companies are experimenting with integrated sales models, but genuine predictive differentiation between channels is still missing.

AI and pharmaceutical logistics management

Introducing artificial intelligence into the pharmacy is transforming the management of stock and reordering. Some of the most common problems include:

• Stockouts: the absence of essential products often goes unmonitored, a critical issue in pharmacy stock management.

• Overstock: excess inventory leads to tied-up capital and expired products, a problem that pharmacy-specific AI software can help resolve.

AI is an essential tool for analysing internal and external data that has traditionally been inaccessible or handled manually, in Excel spreadsheets for instance, making it actionable and useful for optimising business processes. The technical management of the pharmacy benefits directly, and so does the wider pharma market, through optimisation of the whole chain: better handling of stockouts, overstock and expired medicines, and improvements in both the pharmaceutical warehouse and drug logistics.

Read also: ten uses of artificial intelligence in the pharmaceutical sector.

The value of reviews in pharma e-commerce

Another topic of considerable interest is user feedback, which is useful for improving products and services. Three main categories emerge:

• The effectiveness of the product or treatment.

• The quality of customer service, with a focus on response times.

• Delivery speed, which is critical in cosmetics above all.

Cultural differences also shape consumer priorities: northern Europe places the emphasis on packaging sustainability, France on fragrance, and Italy on delivery times. Reviews offer valuable information for improving pharmaceutical logistics processes and optimising the customer experience, both online and offline.

Proof of concept for pharma AI software

We at Profiter handle the most analytical part, and that is where the money is. So the entrepreneur who wants to drive efficiency, raise frequency and raise revenue needs to look there for what can be improved.

With certain forms of artificial intelligence becoming ever more accessible, innovation is now within reach of entrepreneurs and organisations as never before. Companies can use innovative methods to validate projects through proof of concept (PoC), bringing concrete evidence to business decision-makers.

How long does it take to build a solid PoC? If companies have the data and it is accessible, things move fairly quickly and you can do a PoC in two months.

Advanced tools such as artificial intelligence platforms, now firmly established, accelerate these processes, making data useful for organising and managing pharmacy stock.

Read also: healthcare logistics, importance and evolution of the sector.

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