Tata-owned 1mg, PharmEasy go offline for omnichannel presence
Two of India’s biggest online pharmacies are going offline, as they look to have an omni-channel presence to widen their user base.
Tata-owned 1mg is set to open its first physical store in Gurugram next month while rival PharmEasy has started to expand across the offline channel through franchise stores, people briefed on the matter said. The two companies have taken different approaches in going offline, and it would be interesting to see how this pans out, they said.
This will put both 1mg and PharmEasy, which are known for their online presence, in direct competition with established offline brands like Apollo Pharmacy and Medplus.
“1mg will open around a dozen stores in the next three to four months. They will see how it goes operationally but they want to scale it across India significantly with about 500 stores in the next three year or so, if all goes as per plan,” a person aware of the matter said.