G.N.R.C. MediShop Pharmacies Debut In India
Author: Robert Coopman
Publisher: Mass Market Retailers
July 2006
Guwahati, India: Pharmacies in India, sometimes referred to as medicine shops, are mostly one of a kind family owned enterprises with one, or perhaps two, locations. Until recently, even in more developed technology center cities like Gourgon, Chennai, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bangalore, chains of five or more pharmacies were unknown.
As India is emerging economically and attracting local entrepreneurial and international attention, so are pharmacies. Change is under way. At this writing, pharmacy chain stores remain relatively small in square footage and small in terms of number of stores. Total number of chains of more than five or so stores also remain quite small. But as India has grown to be among the most, if not the most attractive emerging world market, pharmacies are changing along with most everything else.
There is a reason the term pharmacy is used rather than drug store. Historically, a pharmacy of 300 to 500 square foot would have been the largest of the large. More familiar were, and still are, pharmacies of 100 to 300 square feet.
Front store product categories such as vitamins, antacids, laxatives and analgesics do not exist. In these and other core drug store product categories, few products exist in general distribution and those that do are sold on request from inside the pharmacy. Even today, a contact lens category is fully assorted with about five SKU’s. Though a fair assortment of personal care products are in common distribution, rarely if ever is there the presence of a self service front store in a traditional Indian pharmacy. One must visit a grocery store, a shopping mall or a tiny personal care or specialty shop to buy most oral, hair or skin care products.
So it was with considerable excitement and customer anticipation that five GNRC MediShop Pharmacies Grand Opened in Guwahati, India, the week of June 25th. Contrary to the ubiquitous small 600 plus traditional pharmacies in this city of one million plus, GNRC MediShop Pharmacies are 800 to 1000 square feet and bring the innovation of front store self service to the market.
While health categories mentioned above still remain absent, the front store offering is one of personal care and convenience foods. Newspaper inserts featuring product categories including oral care, skin care, baby care and nutrition excited customers to check out this new style offering. They responded enthusiastically. Personal care products, self-service and price oriented promotional activity are new to this market. On the sidewalks in front of the GNRC MediShop Pharmacies, A-frame street signs announced “Hot Buys”. In-store floor stacks of “Special Buys” piqued customer’s curiosity and stimulated impulse buying.
The entrepreneurial spirit behind GNRC MediShop Pharmacies is Dr. N.C. Borah, a native neurologist and founder of Guwahati Neurological Research Center Hospital and Clinics in Guwahati. It is not an exaggeration to recognize the status of Dr. Borah as a respected icon among the 40 million in habitants of the North East of India.
That is not to say, however, that the GNRC MediShop Pharmacies are alone as a recent chain pharmacy development in India. There are 98.4 and a master franchise of Medicine Shoppe’s from the United States in New Delhi. Health and Glow, a unit of Dairy Farm International from Shanghai is present in Chennai and Bangalore. Apollo, a chain of hospitals has developed a chain of in-patient, outpatient pharmacies associated with its Apollo Hospitals and clinics. Subikhsha, previously a chain of small grocery stores primarily in Southern India has added small personal care and pharmacy counters to newly expanded and remodeled stores. Guardian LifeCare pharmacies have developed in New Delhi and Gourgon. To be sure, store formats for all of these new pharmacy market entrants are consistently 1500 square feet or less. But that will change and most likely, rapidly.
To date, some global marketers of health, personal care and cosmetic brands have been discouraged from entering India because of an absence of brand protection in the law. That problem is being addressed by the Indian central government with some resolution expected fairly soon.
So while there is excited growth in pharmacy store size, product offerings and promotional activity, it can be said with unmistakable accuracy that development has begun and the race is on. Drug stores including pharmacies are replacing traditional medicine shops. Where this goes and what the market combatants look like five years from now is only speculation. With each passing day the rapidly growing 300 to 400 million solidly middle class residents of India are finding pharmacy/drug store shopping much more interesting than even a year ago. That is not speculation.
