eCommerce: Specialist Online Pharmacies

Online Pharmacies: Key Insights

• Walgreens and CVS Lead the Market: The world's most lucrative online pharmacies are two U.S. drugstores with a network of physical stores. Generating online revenues exceeding the US$1 billion mark, their achievements demonstrate the importance of efficient organizational resources in delivering healthcare products.

• Latin American Online Pharmacies Ascend: Online pharmacy rankings indicate Brazil's Drogaraia and Mexico's Fahorro have climbed to the top 10 from lower positions. Their profitability stems from offering affordable products to remote populations during the pandemic and into 2023.

• Warehouse Automation and Store Networks: Leading online pharmacies share commonalities in integrating extensive physical and online networks with digital communication technology. Automated distribution ensures round-the-clock order processing, which improves product availability.

Online pharmacies build on the convenience and accessibility with which they offer their pharmaceutical and health products to consumers. With home delivery, omnichannel services and automation, online pharmacies today have a wider reach than what was typical before the pandemic.

ECDB data provides a deeper investigation into the online pharmacy trend: Find information on market revenues, store rankings and key trends.

In Scope: What Is a Specialist Online Pharmacy?

Our ECDB Store Ranking offers a selection of specialist online stores from different global regions. A specialist store primarily sells products in one product category.

In the case of online pharmacies, it is health-related products such as medicines, hygiene products, disinfectants, skin treatment, nutritional foods and supplements, as well as other miscellaneous health products such as first aid items, condoms, and biometric monitors.

It is important to note, however, that our market data does not include prescription drugs in the online revenue analysis due to inconsistent regulations across countries. Homeopathic remedies are also out of scope.

Which Online Pharmacies Are in the Top 10?

The chart below depicts a ranking of the top 10 specialist online pharmacies by online revenues.

By a wide margin, walgreens.com is the pharmacy with the highest online net sales worldwide, having generated a rounded US$2 billion in 2023. CVS.com is a close competitor, with online net sales of US$1.6 billion. Indian store Netmeds surpassed the US$ billion mark with US$1.4 billion and therefore ranked third.

The Strategy: Both Walgreens and CVS are traditional brick-and-mortar drugstores with a successful online presence, offering customers a convenient and accessible delivery service for health products.

Two German Online Stores Rank Fourth and Sixth

Other successful specialist online pharmacies include two German stores, shop-apotheke.com and docmorris.de, with 2023 online revenues of US$834.8 million and US$675.2 million, respectively.

Two Russian pharmacies made the top 10 as well, apteka.ru and eapteka.ru. In 7th place is Brazil's drogaraia.com.br with US$560.8 million in 2023 eCommerce revenues. It is followed by Swedish online store apotea.se.

Swedish Innovation: Apotea uses automation in its warehouse, using machine learning algorithms to ensure efficient and round-the-clock handling of its products.

In eighth place is the Saudi Arabian pharmacy nahdionline.com, with 2023 net sales of US$372 million. Ranked tenth is Mexican fahorro.com, with online net sales of US$333.5 million in 2023.

Latin American Online Pharmacies Emerge

Considering Walgreen’s outstanding online revenues in the market, it should not come as too much of a surprise that the established U.S. retailer has already been in first place among online pharmacies for years. The same goes for CVS in second place.

Most notable is the ascension of Latin American online pharmacies over recent years: Brazil’s Drogaraia ranked 24th in 2019, but it gradually climbed in the following years, jumping to 6th rank in 2023. Fahorro, which was in 26th place in 2019, also made significant progress, reaching 11th place in 2020 and rose from 9th to 10th place in the following three years. 

The two German stores, Shop-Apotheke and Docmorris moved within the top 10 ranking since 2019, which is also the case for the Russian pharmacy apteka.ru, while eapteka.ru improved its placement from 20th place in 2019 up into the top 10 since 2022.

A notable emerging competitor in this ranking is nahdionline.com, a Saudi Arabian online pharmacy. Similar to the previous stores, Nahdi Medical is an established company with a brick-and-mortar presence throughout Saudi Arabia. But only recently has the health products and service provider entered the top 10 ranking, which is due to an enhanced strategy including bigger stores with a hybrid offering, home delivery of international products, and digital health services.

The data shows us that the online pharmacy market is not only promising for future profitability, but also highly diversified and competitive. With technological innovation, affordable offers, increased consumer demand, and trade-friendly national regulations, online pharmacies will continue to change the way we shop for healthcare products.

Online Pharmacies: Closing Thoughts

The online pharmacy market continues its upward path. Leading online stores in this sector emphasize customer convenience through their blend of physical drugstore networks and online communication, as well as distribution center automation. A few provide 24/7 product access. These innovations also hold promise in low and middle income economies, extending affordable healthcare to remote areas and enabling consumers to find the best deals.

Sources: Arabnews - ElementLogic - FPI - Netmeds - PNI