The pharmaceutical sector has always been powerful and competitive. It is a sector that is central to people’s daily lives and it is growing all the time. Digitalisation has not lagged behind in this area and as a result, many pharmacies have decided to expand their business to ecommerce. This leads to the necessity of monitoring your competitors, analyse their prices and compare them with yours.
But why is monitoring your competitors that important in the pharmaceutical sector?
Even if your pharmacy is doing well, it is precisely the fact that pharmacies have moved to ecommerce that makes you compete not only locally, but also in a much larger and more competitive market, the internet. Each pharmacy will choose to apply a different pricing strategy. Many of the shops may apply discounts of up to 40% and others do not discount at all. Discounts are good branding to attract customers, although, when compared to the average price of the products on sale in other pharmacies, what happens is that no real discount is visible, as the average price ends up being the same, discounted or not. This does not mean that one strategy is better than another, but it is important to have the necessary tools for monitoring your competitors in order to make the best strategy and market decisions.
Advantages of online monitoring of pharmaceuticals
Monitoring competitors can be an exhausting task and impossible to follow manually due to constant price changes. That’s why, by having an online price monitoring software, you save time and can improve your dynamic pricing strategy. Not only can you automatically compare prices with your competitors, but you can also set the rules and standards you want for each of your products. For example; you always want to be 1 euro cheaper than your biggest competitor for a certain product, or you always want to stay the same as your competitor for another product, you decide how much and when. On the other hand, another advantage of comparing prices and using the right software is that it is also possible to monitor the online stock of your pharmaceutical competitors. This is a great help in knowing how much stock your competitors have left and when they have run out of stock. The moment you are the only seller of a product, you can allow yourself to raise the price of the product, again through automated rules.
The pharmaceutical ecommerce sector is expected to grow consistently. According to Data Bridge Market Research, growth is expected to be 21.30% CAGR in the period 2020-2027. This means that, as we have seen, competition is becoming increasingly fierce and price comparison is essential. Technology is a fundamental key to beating your competitors and Netrivals’ software is perfect to face them and boost your sales.
