1000Farmacie Review: Italy's Leading Online Pharmacy
1000Farmacie was created in September 2020 to provide an easier Online Pharmacy experience that may be enjoyed by millions! Mohamed Younes and Alberto Marchetti, the company's co-founders, recognized that the market was underserved in three areas:
- Consumers were unable to find all of the products they required in a single online pharmacy. Conventional pharmacies, in reality, have limited stock, and customers choose to shop from multiple websites to meet all of their demands.
- Most established players' user experience has been consistent for over a decade.
- The shipping time was excessive!
To overcome these challenges, they created an internet platform that could bring together hundreds of pharmacies in one location. 1000Farmacie now has over 150 partners across the country (bringing us closer to our customers) and sells over 100.000 goods (this is almost 3X the assortment of any other online pharmacy).
1000Farmacie already has over 250,000 consumers, due to a network of more than 100 small pharmacies in major Italian cities and a product selection of 95,000 unique items. The company's revenue has increased by 600 percent during the past year. Additionally, the startup has partnerships with some of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies, which employ its technology to enhance the efficacy of its drug delivery services.
With the previous $ 1.7 million investment round in April 2020, the startup has now raised a total of $17 million. According to market research firm Businesscoot, the value of Italy's 24h pharmacy e-commerce business increased by around two-thirds to €234 million between 2019 and 2020. The latest investment, led by P101 and HBM Healthcare Investments, adds to the $1.7 million raised in the company's first round in 2020, bringing the total amount raised to date to approximately $17 million.
It was backed by Corisol Holding, Club degli Investitori, Iag, Liftt, and Healthware Ventures, the venture capital arm of pharmaphorum's parent firm, Healthware Group.
The cash will be used, among other things, to expand the company's operations and last-mile delivery service. 1000Farmacie seeks to grow its partnership infrastructure with local pharmacies, and by 2023, it plans to integrate more healthcare services into the platform to better help patients and their families.
Recent research by Forbes Italy indicates that Europe's e-pharmacy business has a potential worth of 180 billion euros, despite the sector's online penetration being close to zero.
What do the Numbers say?
Although Italy's online pharmacy market is ripe for growth, its current penetration rate of 4.5% is lower than that of several other industries, like tourism (34%), electronics (33%), and other services (33%). (24%).
Without any second thoughts, they decided to invest in 1000Farmacie because of the promising future of the online pharmacy industry. They believe in this company's potential because of its excellent management team and the market potential they have identified. They got in on the ground floor of its creation.
The projects that may revitalize their reference markets by introducing a wave of technology and innovation are especially intriguing to us, as P101SGR Partner Giuseppe Donvito put it. 1000Farmacie is undeniably one of those," Donvito went on to say.
P101 SGR led the round through P102 and ITALIA 500 with participation from Corisol Holdings, Club degli investitori, IAG, LIFTT, and Healthware Ventures (Azimut). The funding will result in the formation of a new board of directors for 1000Farmacie, which will comprise Giuseppe Donvito, Partner at P101, and Alexander Asam, Investment Adviser at HBM Partners.
The company wants to use the investment money to increase its operations and market penetration, improve its last-mile delivery service, and build a local pharmacy network.
How does it function?
According to 1000Farmacie’s CEO Nicola Petrone – “We made this price distortion visible so that now customers can always find all of the products they are looking for at the best price.”
1000Farmacie was formed with the purpose of digitizing the Italian pharmacy business using a vertical marketplace model, allowing patients in Italy to compare costs between drug stores and source products at the lowest feasible market price. It aims to offer a wide range of products and quick ordering and delivery to improve the shopping experience for patients while keeping the relationship between the pharmacist and the customer.
It strives to improve patients' purchasing experiences by offering a wide range of items, as well as speedy ordering and delivery while aiming to maintain the pharmacist-customer relationship. PillPack, which is now owned by Amazon, has applied a similar concept in the US market.
A number of pharmaceutical and consumer health firms, including Johnson & Johnson, Dr. Scholl's Chicco, and L'Oreal, have worked with 1000Farmacies to leverage the company's platform to distribute products to patients.
In actuality, it is a very fragmented market that remains heavily reliant on traditional offline sales (over 200,000 pharmaceutical drugs sold in more than 50,000 physical stores in Europe). Digital marketplaces are minor in comparison to other kinds of commerce. The corporation currently controls roughly 25-30% of the market.
They will be able to greatly increase the range of services offered as part of our objective to assist our consumers and improve the overall shopping experience, innovating in an industry that is still in its infancy when it comes to digitalization. The identical medication can be acquired at significantly varying prices in different pharmacies around Italy.
Last words:
1000Farmacie is a part of the expanding e-pharmacy and digital healthcare business in Europe, which has a potential worth of €180 billion, but its online penetration is currently near nil. It is, in fact, a market heavily dependent on offline sales (over 200,000 products have been sold in over 50,000 brick-and-mortar stores in Europe) and with a very low presence on digital marketplaces. Particularly in Italy, the expansion potential is enormous: between 2018 and 2020, the penetration rate of the e-pharmacy sector expanded by a factor of three.
Hopefully, the above information must have served your queries related to 1000Farmacie. Stay tuned with Ofmum to read more reviews of top brands like this.