How To Develop A Medicine Delivery App?

10 min readJul 6, 2021

Even though the widespread pandemic of covid-19 bought the world to a screeching, it has also challenged the world to questions its traditional ways. May it be the IT, businesses or shop owners — everyone decided to change their ways to align with the future-proofed technology.

With the stricter regulations imposed by the government and the rising panic among the consumers, even the pharmacy owners switched to digital. The pharmacy owners knew that the only way to get to the customers was through the medicine delivery app.

As a result, most consumers are now shifting online to buying medicines to prevent getting themselves from going out and enjoying the ease of medicine delivery.

The on-demand medicine delivery app development is receiving an unprecedented edge due to the continuously growing medicine delivery app market.

Talking about the stats and trends of the online medicine delivery apps:

The pharmaceutical drug delivery market is estimated to reach $1.7 trillion by 2023 globally at a CAGR of 6.4%.
The demand for the overall medicines category has gone up by almost 100% post-pandemic, says the founder of the online medicine delivery app, PharmEasy.
Covid 19 has given the online medical stores a chance to take off with a record surge in sales.
The online pharmacy stores are expected to reach $3.7 billion by 2022.

The pharmacy store owners are switching to the medicine delivery app development to monetize their business and run with the trend. If you are also looking forward to owning a medicine delivery app, this post is just for you. Here we will discuss the benefits of medicine delivery app development, the features of the app, and the cost of medicine delivery app.

Let’s start by knowing about,

What is A Medicine Delivery App, And How Does The Medicine Delivery App Work?

A medicine delivery app allows the customers to deliver their medicines to their doorstep with just a tap. Any pharmacy store or producer can get the medicine delivery app developed with the software development company.

In the last few months, these delivery apps have seen an exponential rise. However, there are multiple factors when it comes to the success of these online medicine apps.

Firstly, the online medicine delivery apps offer a convenient buy from the comfort of the home, mainly at a discounted price. Secondly, the consumers no longer have to physically visit the stores and get the medicines delivered by just uploading the documents and prescriptions. Lastly, online retailers can cater to massive global needs compared to the traditional medical stores that are restricted to a specific location. Owing to these reasons, many medical businesses and enterprises are planning to go online to develop online medicine delivery.

The success and growth of online medicine stores can be differentiated majorly into two models. One of them is based on how they operate, and the second is to monetize the app and make good profits out of it.

The first model is where the pharmacy stores have vital medications, and the consumers can submit the prescriptions for the medicine they want. The online retailers then check the availability of the order received and ship the product once the consumers make the online payment.

The second model is where the pharmacy does not store the medicines in their inventory and partner with a local offline store for the medical supplies. When the customer places an order, the online medication stores check the availability of the required medicines with the pharmacy closest to the customers’ shipping address and further partners. The delivery agents then deliver the medication at the customer’s address physically, and the revenue is shared between the involved parties upon the agreed terms and conditions.

Let’s talk about some of the advantages of medicine delivery app development for your pharmacy store or enterprise.

Benefits Of Medicine Delivery Application

Along with the ease of delivery, lucrative discounts and doorstep service, the medicine delivery apps have many other benefits. Here we have discussed a few,

1. Professional Advice and Expert Help

The delivery medicine app users can consult the doctors on the app and the nutritionist experts about the nutritional product information, side effects or benefits, and dosage requirements as directed by the physicians.

2. No Compromise on Product Quality

While ordering from the delivery apps, the customers can be assured of the excellent quality of the products and can enjoy the medicine delivery at the desired time and day within the app. They can also keep track of all the necessary hallmarks, barcodes, number of strips, and history of ordering.

3. Ease of Using a Multilingual application

The users can operate the application or the online store with ease owing to its multilingual features. They can place an order, track the order and sign up in their desired languages. The ease of having an app in their native language helps provide a basic understanding to the users about the services app is offering.

4. Prescription or report upload

The online app users can easily upload the prescriptions as directed by their doctors and their medical test reports to get a consultation from the experts available on the app and buy suitable medicines from the online app.

5. Refined and filtered search

To enhance the ease of use, the medicine apps come with a search feature that allows the users to apply the filters and search for a specific medicine depending upon their preference.

Moving on to the most crucial factor of the app,

Key Features Of A Medicine Delivery App?

The features of an app are the main factor in deciding the success and the popularity of the app. It also decides the ease of usage of the app and user interface of the applications. Thus, before you move forward with online medicine delivery app development, here is a list of critical features you should include in the medicine delivery app. The features are divided into four major categories: customer, admin, pharmacy, and delivery, with a detailed list of the features.

Let’s talk about them one by one.

1. Customer Features

Login and Registration: The user must register easily in the app through a mobile number, email id or social channels. You can even include the OTP for additional security.
Prescription Uploading: This allows the user to take the photo of their prescription and upload it along with any other test reports
Medicine Search: The users should be able to search for medicines easily with the help of filters like salts, categories, names, brands, etc.
Details of the Medicine: The users must have all the information about the drugs and should be able to check the details or descriptions, manufacturer and compare prices.
Medicine Substitute: In case of unavailability of the desired medicine, the app should recommend the drug substitute and allow the customers to find alternative generic drugs by their salts or names.
Adding to Cart: The users should be able to collect the selected medicines or health equipment in their carts for checkout.
Order Placing: The users should be able to place the order without any hassle once they have added their desired products to the cart.
Order Tracking: The users should be able to track the order, once dispatched, through a unique tracking id.
Payments Gateways: Allow the users to make secure online payments through debit or credit cards, net banking or wallet.

2. Admin Panel Features

Admin Dashboard: The admin should be able to check, manage and view all the ongoing orders, partners or pharmacists, customers, delivery boys, and total earnings at a single platform.
Order Management: Admin should be able to manage all ongoing orders along with the history and current order tracking status.
Pharmacists Management: This allows the admin to manage, add, remove, update all pharmacists the app has partnered with.
Customer Management: This allows the admin can manage customers, broadcast messages to users, and send push notifications to customers about the offers, deals, promos, etc.
Inventory Management: The inventory check feature allows the admin to manage inventory and notify the dealers when products are going out of stock or are nearing expiry dates.
Analytics and Reports: It is essential for the admin to keep a check on all the operational data and statistics to create performance reports and take further marketing actions.

3. Pharmacy Features

Easy set up: This should allow the quick and easy account set up for pharmacies on the app.
Products Management: The pharmacy owner should monitor and manage the product, including drug information like description, expiry date, and essential medication instructions.
Product Listings: This allows the pharmacists to add, upload and feature product images, cost, and category.
Prescription viewing: The pharmacist should be able to review the digital prescriptions uploaded by the users.
Price Management: To meet the dynamic marketing strategies, pharmacists should easily change medicine prices in the app.
Order History: This feature allows pharmacists to access the entire order history in the past to offer a customized experience to the users.
Ratings and Reviews: Pharmacy staff can manage the ratings and reviews given by the users.

4. Delivery Features

Manage Profile: The courier and delivery companies should upload their personal business information, license id to be licensed delivery partners.
Staff Availability: Delivery staff must set the current status of their package delivery progress, for example, order dispatch, on the way, delivered.
Real-time Notifications: The delivery agents should receive a notification when an order is placed
Delivery Route: The delivery agents should use GPS to check the best delivery routes to the customer’s home.

Now that you are aware of the features, it’s time to discuss the steps to proceed with the medicine app development.

Steps For Medicine Delivery App Development

The steps of developing are crucial to creating a robust and user-friendly medicine delivery app. Before you jump right into the development process, you need to go through rigorous market research, identify a unique selling proposition and competitors, find a software development company and strategize the launch and marketing of your application.

1. Market Research and Analysis

If you want your app to be successful, ensure that you have done a thorough market analysis before the development starts. The first stage includes identifying the market size, learning about the perspectives and customer base of medicine delivery app development in a specific location, the problems you might have to face, and who the competitors.

2. Business Model and App Monetisation

Post a 360-degree investigation of the medicine delivery app market and the competitors; the second stage is to finalize the business model and the app’s monetization. Ensure that you are aware of the business model you want to work with because the further stages of the app development will depend on the idea of your business model.

You can then decide the app features and functionalities based on your chosen model that you will need in your application to meet the user requirements.

3. Look for a Mobile App Development Company

The most vital part of any application of software development is finding the best mobile app development company. Out of hundreds of development companies, the medicine delivery app companies in the UK stand out from the crowd and offer high-tech expertise with cost-efficient development.

4. App Testing and launching

It is imperative to test the app before rolling it out to the public. The expert quality assurance engineers should thoroughly test the application for the features, UX and UI, code, front-end, etc.

Once the quality testers and engineers are sure of the application, the app can then be launched on the Play Store. However, right after your app is successfully released, you need to plan for the app up-gradation and improvements.

How Much Does It Cost To Develop An Online Medicine Delivery App?

Once you finalize the features and are sure of the operation model you want to work upon, you can choose the technologies. But keep in mind that every feature integration and technology has a different cost involved. Furthermore, the total development cost also depends on the hourly rates of the developers that the app development company charges.

Here are a few factors responsible for developing a medicine delivery app for your business

Type of application platforms — iOS, Android
The features and functionalities to include
UI/UX design for the application
Backend and quality testing of the application
App maintenance and support post-delivery support
Rates of the app development company on the hourly or monthly basis

Matellio Can Be Your Development Partner

It is no surprise that the medicine delivery mobile application is gaining traction and is attracting many businesses and enterprises. Moreover, the app connects the users with and provides competitive prices to assure maximum benefits. It’s a real gain in pain.

With years of experience and hundreds of successful apps, the expert mobile app development team at Matellio is transforming businesses across various verticals globally to build stunning web and mobile applications.

If you are looking forward to developing a medicine delivery app, you can get in touch with us today.

Originally published at https://www.matellio.co.uk/ on July 2, 2021