The difficulties and future of medical e-commerce B2B

Release date: 2016-07-22

From the end of the last century, the Chinese government promulgated the "Interim Provisions on the Circulation Management of Prescription Drugs and Non-prescription Drugs", prohibiting the sale of prescription drugs and non-prescription drugs online. The medical e-commerce has almost developed in China for nearly 16 years, and these hot models of B2C and O2O T2, the medical e-commerce B2B always looks tepid, and some people feel the cold bench for many years. In the past two years, there have been people in the industry who have evaluated the medical e-commerce B2B. "The surface looks beautiful, but in reality it is very operability."

Reality, what is it?

Overall hard

The situation has changed since last year. The medical e-commerce B2B slowly began to fire and became a hot investment direction. From 2015 to this year, several financing incidents such as drug terminal network, unnamed penguin, pharmacist help, and cheap drug made the medical e-commerce B2B attract the attention of the industry. The newly established 360 health also targeted the service target to the B end. Tan Jie, CEO of Chengdu Soso E-Commerce Co., Ltd. told health reporters that since last year, many VC/PEs are willing to invest huge amounts of money in the B2B field of medical e-commerce, which has greatly promoted the development of the B2B market.

In addition, Tan Jie believes that B2B e-commerce in all walks of life has made breakthroughs. The development of B2B e-commerce in other industries will also affect the development of medical e-commerce B2B. Secondly, after several years of market promotion and market education, Pharmaceutical companies, pharmaceutical companies, pharmacies and hospitals have also increased their understanding of the B2B model. These are all factors that make medicine B2B develop in a good direction. But from a holistic perspective, Tan Jie believes that the current medical e-commerce B2B is still in its infancy. "If the medical e-commerce B2B market is compared to a 15,000-kilometre long-distance running, then this market has only ran two or three kilometers. More than 10,000 meters did not run."

Although capital has begun to pay attention to pharmaceutical B2B, but because it is still in its infancy, compared with e-commerce B2C, which has mature development and clear business model, there are no particularly successful cases in e-commerce B2B in various industries across the country. Jie said that in the field of domestic medical e-commerce B2B, "in general, everyone is doing a lot harder."

Toby research data shows that as of February 2016, there are currently 138 companies engaged in pharmaceutical B2B e-commerce business, including 25 A-certification companies and 113 B-certification companies. From the perspective of the operation of the corporate website, 93 websites are in normal operation and can realize B2B trade services.

A new business model to replace an old business model is necessary to solve the drawbacks of the original model. Usually a medium-sized pharmaceutical company has a business scope of about one or two thousand standard drugs, and the number is limited. Even a small pharmacy can handle thousands of drugs. If you want to meet your purchasing needs at once, you will have certain requirements for the supplier's product coverage. Therefore, a wide variety of online trading platforms can greatly improve transaction efficiency, and buyers and sellers gathered on the same trading platform will also share the basic cost and reduce the cost of obtaining customers. Zou Xiaoliang, the founder of the unnamed penguin, said that traditional drug distribution is a peer-to-peer model. Compared with the traditional drug circulation model, the core competitiveness of medical B2B lies in its network model, which is a very large number of OTC products for sales. The advantages of medicine will be highlighted.

Our traditional pharmaceutical distribution system is generally a three-tier distribution system, and the lengthy supply chain and layer-level price increase are also considered as a factor leading to high drug prices. He Side, the founder of the pharmaceutical terminal network, believes that there are many problems in the process of traditional medicine circulation. The emergence of medical e-commerce B2B has increased the speed of information transmission, flattening the intermediate circulation links, and the circulation of medical E-commerce B2B drugs can be reduced to From the pharmaceutical factory to the first-level wholesaler to the terminal, and even directly from the manufacturer to the terminal, the circulation link no longer has the same multi-level. “The information transmission is more efficient, the transaction frequency is lower, the cost is also reduced, and the market control ability is strengthened. This is the meaning of B2B.”

How to choose a pharmacy?

In China's drug circulation system, the terminal sales channels of drugs mainly have two parts: one is prescription drugs for hospitals (especially public hospitals): the other is for selling drugs through retail pharmacies. Because most of the medicines purchased by public hospitals are currently carried out on provincial drug bidding procurement platforms or other government-led trading platforms, market-oriented pharmaceutical B2B services are mainly small and medium-sized pharmacies or small and medium-sized clinics.

An industry insider who knows the pharmacy's purchase habits told health reporters that the current small and medium pharmacies mainly purchase goods from local pharmaceutical wholesale companies in the traditional way. For small and medium pharmacies, there are two criteria for purchasing goods: one is that the price is low, and the other is that the account period is long and the payment can be owed. The purchase situation of small and medium-sized clinics is similar to that of pharmacies. Large pharmaceutical distribution companies usually get lower ex-factory prices from pharmaceutical companies because of the scale effect, so their wholesale prices are also relatively low, but large drug distribution companies generally do not allow pharmacies to default on purchases, so despite the large circulation enterprises on the price There are advantages, but because of the accounting period and logistics reasons, these small and medium pharmacies are still inclined to choose the local small and medium-sized pharmaceutical companies to purchase goods, although the price is higher than the large pharmaceutical companies, but allow the pharmacies to extend the account period or default on payment.

In this regard, Tan Jie believes that the wool is on the sheep. Traditional pharmaceutical companies are willing to pay for the drug store, but it will definitely increase the gross profit, so that the pharmaceutical company has the profit to support the goods, the medical B2B does not stock but the price is superior to the traditional pharmaceutical company. Drugstores with tight capital may value the goods, but those with good business and ample cash flow value the purchase price and profits. Therefore, Tan Jie believes that the advantages of traditional pharmaceutical companies in stocking goods are not obvious, and the medical e-commerce B2B has the support of financial chains and financial instruments to meet the demand for liquidity by pharmacies.

He Side also has the same view. He said that the flattening of the transaction link can reduce transaction costs, so the Internet is still the first choice for reducing intermediate links. In the past, I wanted to get ample liquidity mainly by using the upstream payment method. Now there are many ways to solve this problem, for example, third-party financial institutions, banks, credit cards, etc. "The Internet can bring a quick return of funds, so the pharmacy will not resist, and it will not be difficult to accept it," said He Sid.

Zou Xiaoliang told the health reporter that the e-commerce platform is a range economy and requires support systems such as online payment, secured transactions, consumer protection, and credit evaluation to help the platform operate. The supply chain financial credit and credit evaluation of the pharmaceutical B2B platform is more efficient than the offline bank credit, because all transaction data is stored online, and the bank can directly credit all sellers and buyers based on the data.

What is the concept of pharmaceutical companies?

Despite the pioneering attempts to change the business model through the Internet, such as Renhe Pharmaceutical, Shanghai Pharmaceutical, and Taiantang, most of the pharmaceutical companies' attitudes toward the Internet are still in the stage of astounding and icing on the cake. Health reporters learned from a drug company responsible for the sale of OTC drugs that this large traditional pharmaceutical company does not currently sell drugs through the medical B2B channel, still taking the traditional offline commercial channels. The drug company's only "touching the net" experience was to open an online store in the Tmall Medical Center, but because it did not obtain the relevant qualifications, the online store can only sell health care products. Since there is no special person responsible for the operation, the online sales of health products that are not optimistic under the online sales situation are not ideal. After the increase of the margin from 30,000 to 100,000 in the Tmall Medical Center, the sales of the online store will not be earned even by the margin. come back.

"Large pharmaceutical companies still focus on traditional sales channels." The logic of Internet development is warm boiled frogs, not only medical e-commerce B2B, but even the development of B2C, which makes eyeballs, is not as fast as we think. Because of the special nature of medicines, traditional pharmaceutical companies will be cautious about medicine B2B, holding a wait-and-see attitude. At the same time, 70%~80% of the market share of China's pharmaceutical terminal market is in public hospitals, while pharmacy terminals account for less than 20% of the market share, and ordinary OTC drugs are “basically not profitable” in the eyes of pharmaceutical companies. He Side also said that the retail pharmacy channel is definitely very positive for small and medium-sized pharmaceutical companies. However, for medium and large-scale pharmaceutical companies, the main energy is still to deal with medical separation, prescription drug admission, and bidding in various provinces. OTC drugs are not currently the focus of their sales.

Therefore, at present, on the B2B platform, most of the pharmaceutical wholesale companies in various places have settled in, and the phenomenon of the separation of the traditional medical companies has continued to the line. Because the current market for medical B2B is still a small pharmacy, clinic or hospital. The amount of drugs they purchase at one time is not large. In many cases, they need to be split and assembled. The amount of drug companies that are shipped out of the warehouse may be at least one piece. Therefore, considering the logistics or distribution capacity and distribution costs, most manufacturers do not support such logistics. Delivery. It is also involved in logistics, speed and multi-category issues. Currently, the mainstream of B2B is still a pharmaceutical company and agent.

According to He Side, there are nearly 100,000 pharmacies in the pharmaceutical terminal network, and there are about 1,000 enterprises and wholesale companies, mainly based on provincial pharmaceutical wholesale companies.

data service

In addition to the low price and high efficiency, another potential "selling point" of the medical e-commerce B2B is the recent popular big data service.

We know that some pharmaceutical companies usually buy market data of their own products or similar products from consulting companies to understand the market structure and develop marketing strategies. He Side told health reporters that for some small pharmaceutical companies that do not have a nationwide marketing system, either the products can only be sold within a certain small range, or they can be sold by agents around the country. Looking for agent sales leads to a problem. It is difficult for pharmaceutical companies to track the sales channels of their products and master the nationwide sales, including how many customers, how many dealers, how many stocks are in stock, etc. Directly affect the company to develop production plans and sales plans. And through the medical B2B can directly understand, such as orders, customers, middlemen and so on.

Tan Jie also said that for pharmaceutical companies, the circulation of medicines on the B2B platform of medical e-commerce is particularly clear. Enterprises will know which pharmacies or hospitals have bought more medicines, and which medicines are sold better. Promotions can be effectively adjusted based on sales. These data information are conducive to the company to have a clearer understanding of the customer, and is very helpful to the channel management of the manufacturer.

However, Tan Jie also pointed out that it is necessary to have an active transaction volume as a basis to support big data services. "At present, the trading volume is not large, and the accumulated data is not much. The trading volume of most medical e-commerce B2B is not enough to support big data. It may still be a concept." He estimated that it may need a In two years, a relatively large data scale will be formed.

However, He Side told the health reporter that the drug terminal network can provide data services to upstream enterprises, but he also stressed the obligation to keep confidential the data of the merchants.

The future of medicine B2B

“The pharmaceutical B2B platform has demand for pharmacies, hospitals, manufacturing companies, and distribution companies. Based on such a demand, the pharmaceutical B2B market will have a rapid development.” Tan Jie said, “The next two or three years will be the pharmaceutical B2B market. An important time for the formation of the pattern."

Compared with medical B2C, the purchase frequency of medical B2B is much higher than that of B2C. It is understood that general pharmacies purchase about 4~10 times a month, and probably buy dozens or hundreds of varieties of drugs at a time. The purchase frequency is very high. high. “That is, B2B may have a big development base in the future. Although it has a relatively high customer cost at the beginning, it may amortize the cost in the future.”

At the same time, Tan Jie is not optimistic about traditional pharmaceutical companies doing medicine B2B, although these companies have supply chain resources and existing huge market share. However, if you don’t change your mind, it’s hard to make a big breakthrough in the short term. On the contrary, entrepreneurs who are completely B2B-based in Internet thinking may take the lead. In the field of medical B2B, there may be a recurrence of the emergence of B2C in medicine - now the top ten medical B2C, such as Qi Lekang, Kang Aiduo, Baekje New Special Medicine, Jianke Net, etc. are all small and medium sized pharmacies in the past or Internet background entrepreneurs have developed almost no traditional large pharmacies.

He Side also believes that the current pharmaceutical B2B market is already moving towards a rising and benign development trend, but the market capacity has not yet reached the expected state, and it will take some time to develop into a scale. However, he said that in the future, pharmaceutical B2B is unlikely to have only one or two large platforms and large pharmaceutical companies to play. In the future, there will be more pharmaceutical companies trading on the pharmaceutical B2B platform than pharmaceutical companies.

He Side pointed out that the current monthly order volume of the drug terminal network is between 10 and 150,000. "There are still many profit methods, and the main income comes from marketing services." He Side confidently told the health reporter that if they were insiders, they could estimate their scale of operation from their monthly order volume.

In the past two years, industry supervision has become stricter. From the perspective of the national policy, GSP and two-vote system are aimed at increasing industry concentration. Small and medium-sized pharmaceutical companies, commercial companies and pharmacies will all be eliminated. The more difficult a business is, the more it is looking for a new way of life for any business. In the existing distribution system, the county-level pharmaceutical company is the last level of drug distribution. Tan Jie believes that if the two-vote system is implemented thoroughly, some county-level pharmaceutical companies will die under the policy squeeze, and this part Market share is likely to be replaced by the pharmaceutical e-commerce B2B market. "The two-vote system will play an accelerating role in the formation of the pharmaceutical B2B platform."

And He Side has different opinions. He said, "The impact is not direct, but it is also an indirect advantage." Although B2B is a two-vote or one-vote system, this two-vote system is aimed at the field of hospital medication. Currently, the medical e-commerce B2B has not been involved. This area has little impact on the medical e-commerce B2B.

Source: Health point Zhang Min

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