In a short span, the Sehat Sathi app has created a robust network of local medical stores from more than 600 towns and cities across India.
India is a country with a deep geographical spread and close to 100 crore people living in tier 2 & 3 cities. Considering the accessibility and affordability of healthcare in these areas, people reach out to pharmacies for all their medical needs. However, according to the statistics – there is only one pharmacy available for every 1700 people. On the other hand, the local medical stores play a critical role during the pandemic like COVID-19 by alleviating the challenges to provide last mile access of healthcare services. This resulted in an exceptional growth of the pharmacy retail market in the country.
As per the estimates – the pharmacy retail market in India is projected to reach INR 2,330.20 Bn by 2024, expanding at a CAGR of 10.08% during the 2019-2024 period. Considering the burgeoning growth of the market, Sehat Sathi – an app designed exclusively for medical stores plays an integral role in ensuring efficient, quick, affordable and trusted healthcare. The app enables the local pharmacies to register themselves and take their business online within 5 minutes.
The idea
Sehat Sathi was developed in 2017 by Shreyans Mehta, Nikhil Baheti and Saida Dhanavath with an aim to bring digital transformation in the retail pharmacy segment. It was started with an idea to help medical stores organize their business, enhance their income, serve customers better and give them access to new services and products. However, after launching the app, the company realized the need to combat several other challenges prevailing in the healthcare sector. For instance, many doctors are not able to reach people living in tier-2 & tier-3 cities. Thus, Sehat Sathi empowers local pharmacies to become huge healthcare support for these people by going online and providing quick, trusted and efficient healthcare solutions.
To help medical stores make their business visible online, the app offers extensive support through a personalized website, customer relationship management, dedicated catalogue, get online customer orders and send medicine reminders to their customers, share deals and send notifications on new stock added. Furthermore, the app solves the problems of expanding the product range on the store by partnering with top brands, providing them access to top pharma distributors for better procurement and also helps them with the requirement of working capital
Business growth
In a short span, the app has created a robust network of local medical stores from more than 600 towns and cities across India. To strengthen healthcare accessibility, it also helps the pharmacies to connect with more than 5000 doctors and provide online consultations in rural areas. Within the 4 years of operations, Sehat Sathi has expanded its network of registered pharmacies from 800 to more than 30000 stores. It currently delivers healthcare services and products at the last mile to more than 35 lakh families while serving its existing customer base online.
Presently, more than 30 thousand medical stores are working with Sehat Sathi App from 15 states of India. However, the company is aggressively working on expanding its network and expecting to digitize 50,000 pharmacies by the end of 2021.
