Ecommerce

Important role of E-Commerce in medical and health care industries

Recent years have seen a remarkable transformation in the way Indian consumers shop. eCommerce has taken the world of retail by storm and fascinated the minds of an entire generation of entrepreneurs. With e-commerce booming like never before, entrepreneurs are not just innovating but are also experimenting with the business models and the sectors they can play in.

Healthcare: The next big thing in eRetailing

There is a huge turmoil within the eCommerce space for a strife of leadership, where everybody wants to be a leader and VCs are warming up to make the business plan self-sustainable, which means, lesser freebies and higher prices. On the other hand, offline is getting leaner, corrections are happening and with the increasing online prices, the online and offline, will not only coexist, but thrive on each other.

From my point of view, Healthcare is the next big thing in the online retailing space as the sector offers an immense potential to the players. A significant increase in life expectancy combined with increasing demand for quality healthcare products, has led to a huge online demand of healthcare products in India.

As healthcare facilities are still developing in Tier II and III cities, there is a tremendous demand from these cities as the maximum traffic comes from there. Also, with the recent rise in GDP and the yearning for basic healthcare amenities among the population has helped and allowed the e-tailing players in healthcare to dive in for the opportunities present for them in the sector.

Exploding Online Healthcare Industry

With healthcare industry slated to grow by $280 million in another 5 years in India, the healthcare eCommerce is exploding. With the 55-year-old lineage and knowledge of manufacturing and selling health and wellness products, Healthgenie.in has resolved to translate this wealth of knowledge and propel the brand and sales to greater heights in the industry which is poised to grow in coming years.

India is world’s second-largest growing online population in the world after Brazil. With 7 out of 10 expected to shop online and in spite of the promise of a very large market opportunity for online and an expectation that this would touch even $90 billion by 2020, there is skepticism amongst investors that this may not last long and that this bubble will burst very soon. Though, there is a strong belief among e-tailers that healthcare will be the next big thing in the online retail space.

As the online/internet business is maturing in India, there is an increasing drive towards developments. Many machine learning technologies are being tested and developed in healthcare settings. This has enabled solving many problems and has assisted the clinicians deliver personalized care to the consumer online.

Minimal spend:

Setting up a physical store at various locations means more retail space and a massive set of challenges, apart from the gigantic investment needs. Physical presence demands labor, rental, inventory and staffing costs of huge proportions. On the other hand, opening an online store is economical as well as has far wider reach. And the icing on the cake is – lower levels of taxation. However, it is even easier to set a store online with skilled assistance of an e-commerce Development company that aids your business go successful offering engaging e-commerce website with amazing feature implementation.

Hence having a clear vision of business uplift, business owners &marketers should move to electronic or digitized retail leaving old modes of retail far behind. They must switch on to e-platforms changing their marketing strategy meeting the ever-growing customer demands. And e-tail is the best and easiest way to grow your small business serving customers’ needs effectively.

Major drivers for online healthcare in India

Time & Cost: The retail and other verticals have gone online, the time and money to access healthcare in large cities is increasingly an issue. Online business enables this in the privacy of their homes at their own time and convenience without having to travel long distances for consultation.

Consumer Demand: A massive shift in popular mindset about healthcare is underway that will generate the consumer driven demand for healthcare products and services. Consumers, now in India have started demanding services that can cater to them in a personalised manner.

Technology: Technology innovation is creating the tool that delivers what the consumers want. It offers us ways to measure outcomes, improve quality, make diagnosis less expensive and personalize therapeutic approaches to increase the likelihood of success. With the increase of smartphones and with 4G services to be rolled out soon, we will be experiencing the concept of “iDiagnostics”

Future of Online Healthcare in India

The future of healthcare in India is very promising as we are seeing a paradigm shift in the way things are done. The records are now being maintained online, which does not have a shelf life and can be accessed throughout, from anywhere.

It has seen huge transition over the period of time and moved beyond patient records to “Health Biographies” and in the coming years, we might see a change of cyber physicians who will look after people’s health and detect changes through sensors. This will prompt swift preventive measures of treatments.

The online healthcare space is very large and it is only increasing day by day with the growth in technology and mobile internet/apps. Features like Video Conferencing, Telemedicine, Online Consultancy, Elderly Care Givers, and Palliative Care Givers are some of the new opportunities/innovations in the healthcare sector, which is changing the entire scenario of healthcare in India.

Future of eCommerce in healthcare is the brightest. Healthcare eCommerce today is like the time, when in telephone landlines era, the mobiles service was just about to hit India. (We could not possibly even image today, then and it’s the same with healthcare).

After taking a holistic view of the industry trends, healthcare eCommerce is poised for an exciting period of exploding growth in a period of 3-5 years. This is expected to lead to substantial investments in supporting infrastructure, innovative and game changing business models.

And finally for us, the point is not to predict the future, but to prepare for it and be one of the few fortunate one to be able to shape it.