Online pharmacies, including 1MG, Medlife and NetMeds, are operating at 50-70% of their capacity, as they continue to face issues related to intercity movement of goods and staff shortage, two weeks into the ongoing 21-day nationwide lockdown.
Although warehouses are open and delivery staff moving freely, they are operating at sub-optimal capacity. Since there is increased consumer demand, there is scarcity of medicines ordered online.
“We are operating at about 60%, a steady increase of capacity with mail orders resuming in parts,” said Ananth Narayanan, cofounder and CEO of Medlife. “Given the nationwide lockdown, there is still a shortage of on-ground personnel reporting to work.”
Narayanan added that the company was providing facemasks and hand sanitiser to delivery personnel to boost attendance. Medlife has also stationed doctors at all fulfilment centres and sanitising its facilities every two hours to ensure safety.
Orders for several categories of medicines, especially those that boost immunity, have doubled over the past few weeks, the companies said.
Earlier, face masks and hand sanitisers were high in demand, but now people are increasingly opting to order medicines online.
Prashant Tandon, founder and CEO of 1MG, said the company was seeing increased number of orders, but logistics, especially intercity movement of goods, was still slow.
It is operating at just 60% of capacity, he added.
NetMeds said it was delivering to over 14,000 pin codes already and was adding more each day as courier partners had begun accepting orders. “Initially delivery was a challenge, but now I’m happy to report that most of our customers have been able to get their medicines and other essentials without any problem,” said Pradeep Dadha, founder and CEO of NetMeds.
The company has also partnered with Reliance Retail to begin delivery of other essential items in Ahmedabad and Pune.
Despite the best efforts of online pharmacies to restore deliveries, consumers are reporting a scarcity of such products online. According to a poll conducted by community platform LocalCircles, 74% respondents said they were not able to get most or any items via online pharmacies.
In a similar survey on availability of medicines through offline stores, only 5% of respondents said they could not find most or all the items.
LocalCircles reported that consumers were facing delayed and cancelled orders for medicines from online platforms despite deliveries of essentials being encoruraged.
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