In the year 2008, three pharmaceutical industry stalwarts, Ashraf Biran, Gulshan Bakhtiani, and Mohan Chavan, together founded Wellness Forever Medicare. Today, 16 years later, they have almost 400 outlets in four states: Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, and Madhya Pradesh, aiming to bridge the gap between pharma and wellness solutions. Nearly 45% of its revenue is from non-pharmaceutical products, and pharmaceutical products account for 55%. Wellness Forever has generated about half its revenue, i.e., around 1500 crore by March 2024, from non-pharma products. Whereas for MedPlus, it accounts for less than one-fifth of the revenue.
Gulshan Bakhtiani, Founder and Director, of Wellness Forever, was quoted as saying that “All three of us are first-generation entrepreneurs with humble beginnings in life. We each pursued our pharmacy careers independently for several years. Each of us had approximately 20 years of experience in the industry by the time we came together to launch Wellness Forever in 2008.” Gulshan also said “We foresaw India’s sustained growth for the next 50 years. With this foresight, we understood the imperative of corporatization in the retail sector, which became the foundational basis of Wellness Forever.”
Before establishing Wellness Forever Medicare, they travelled worldwide to companies like Walgreens and Target to get a sense of health and wellness stores. During their trip to the UK, they explored Boots Company and decided that this was the vision they were seeing to bring it to India.
They observed that the traditional pharmacies have confined themselves to only medicines, and to bridge the gap, they came up with the idea of Wellness Forever Medicare. Ashraf Biran was the pharmacy owner and the visionary behind the merging of wellness and care, Gulshan Bakhtiani is the area sales manager and developing strategies for sales, and lastly, Mohan Chavan is an expert in logistics and distribution, with each one of them having their prowess, they together built the drugstore chain Wellness Forever Medicare.
An investor was quoted as saying that “the idea behind the Wellness Forever is to create Walgreens or Boots of India." Adar Ponawalla, the chief executive of the Serum Institute of India, first invested in 2016 and owns roughly around 25%.
Wellness is not just a pharmacy store; it can be operated 24/7, and it can be accessible to the public anytime.
Wellness pips other brands like Apollo Pharmacy and MedPlus, even though MedPlus has more outlets, Wellness is much better in terms of performance. Wellness almost has 3 times the gross margin when compared to MedPlus, and this led them to file for an IPO (initial public offering) for a whopping 1600 crore in September 2021 but had to drop the plan due to situations arising because of the pandemic.
The chain has grown by almost 70% and has established itself as a chemist and lifestyle store. But then enter the quick commerce giants into the scene. It won't be wrong to say that quick commerce giants like Blinkit, Zepto, and Instamart have taken over several other brands, like Wellness Forever Medicare, and to stay in the competition and attract more consumers, Wellness Forever Medicare is offering greater deals on multiple products.
Quick Commerce is the advanced version of e-commerce, and it speeds up the process of delivery. Quick commerce is a combination of e-commerce and last-mile delivery where it delivers goods within minutes, whereas e-commerce takes hours to deliver. It has been able to deliver within minutes as it has established dark stores in heavily populated areas, which helps them to easily pick up and deliver compared to the previous method, which delivered through delivery trucks, which took them hours.
Quick Commerce is a new business model that is customer-oriented. More and more customers today rely on online and quick delivery. Post-pandemic, quick commerce has gained much attention as people wanted items to be delivered to their doorstep quickly within minutes.
Step-wise process of quick delivery platforms:
Order placed by the customer
Order received in the system
Order transferred to the nearest dark store
Ordered items packed
Ordered items delivered to the customer
Benefits of quick commerce delivery:
Ensures delivery is swift
Availability of products due to inventory management
24-hour operation
Properly timed deliveries
Ease of customers as they do not have to visit the store
The benefits for businesses are:
Enhanced sales and revenue
Customer satisfaction
Increased efficiency, inventory management
But this business strategy has higher expenses involved as it involves last-mile delivery, and that is the reason customers are charged minimal delivery costs. Over time, it can further be worked on to make it more cost-effective and efficient.
Challenges:
To create more and more dark stores to fulfill the demand.
Costs involved in creating these stores and last-mile delivery.
Technology is the most important factor in quick delivery, and integrating this into current systems poses a challenge.
Due to changes in the retail industry, consumer demands, and technological advancements, quick commerce has revolutionized itself. It offers customers quicker delivery by reducing the waiting time, and the presence of a large number of products in one place provides convenience. It also offers businesses the opportunity to increase their sales and revenue, increase operational efficiency, and make it customer-friendly. With the technological advancements in place, there is a lot of scope for further innovation and expansion.
References:
1. G, S. (2024, July 29). Poonawalla-backed Wellness Forever was unrivalled as a half-pharmacy, half-grocer. Then came quick commerce. The Ken. https://the-ken.com/story/poonawalla-backed-wellness-forever-was-unrivalled-as-a-half-pharmacy-half-grocer-then-came-quick-commerce/
2. K, M., K, M., & K, M. (2024, March 12). Benefits of Quick Commerce and its Business Model 2024. Aalpha. https://www.aalpha.net/articles/what-is-q-commerce-quick-commerce-business-model/
3. Ashish. (2024, July 4). What is Quick Commerce: Benefits for Consumers & Businesses. WareIQ. https://wareiq.com/resources/blogs/what-is-quick-commerce/
4. Ibef. (2024, July 24). The rise of quick commerce in India: Revolutionising retail and Last-Mile delivery. India Brand Equity Foundation. https://www.ibef.org/blogs/the-rise-of-quick-commerce-in-india-revolutionising-retail-and-last-mile-delivery
