How to Create Cost Effective Online Medicine Delivery App?

The online medicine delivery segment is growing at a brisk rate. Medicine delivery apps like 1mg, Pharmeasy, Netmeds are changing the way people buy medicines. If you are also planning an online medicine delivery app development, then you have come to the right place.

Here you find everything you want to know about creating a medicine delivery app. 

Determine your Delivery Area

How many zip codes are you going to serve? Is your business model flexible enough to scale on demand?

These are important questions to ask before starting your online medicine delivery service. You will have to coordinate with suppliers, logistic services, and end customers to create an ecosystem that works in a frictionless manner. 

Once you have figured out the right scale for your online medicine delivery service, the next step is to start creating one.

Make A Cost Estimation for Reliable Pharmacy App Development

You can either choose to go native and create your app independently for Android and iOS mobile users. But this will consume both time and money.

A better alternative is cross-platform development where you can deploy your app across multiple platforms simultaneously. This will accelerate not only the time to market but also save you money on development costs. 

A medium-complexity app for a single platform can cost you anything between $50,000 – $100,000. On the other hand, Cross-platform development frameworks like Xamarin or Ionic can save you up to 30% on development costs.

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Cost Factors that Impact Medicine Delivery App Development

If you want to know how much custom online medicine delivery app development, here are a few factors that can help you make an estimate: 

• The Team Size: App development involves multiple stages. And every stage needs specific skills and experience. As such any mobile application requires multiple sets of teams including designers, developers, quality testers, etc. 
• App Features: Development cost increases significantly with app complexity. The more complex features your app, the longer is the development time and the higher the cost.
• App Testing: Testing is an essential element of mobile app development. App testing can cover nearly 10-20% of the development cost. Moreover, the test costs can multiply for apps like 1 mg where you have to comply with stricter data policy and government guidelines. 
• App Hosting and Security: You need to purchase hosting to store your app data. For a medicine delivery app that handles critical health data of end-users, the app data must be well-protected throughout its three states: at rest, in motion, and use. 
• App Update and Maintenance: To keep your app protected and ensure hassle-free service to customers, it is important that your app is constantly maintained and dusted concerning the latest OS updates, latest security protocols, features, etc.

Whether you choose a native app or a cross-platform online medicine delivery app development, keep the above factors in mind to estimate the costs. This way you will be able to build a successful online delivery app without overspending on development.

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Must-Have Features In Your Online Medicine Delivery App 

To make your task easier, below we have listed some of the must-have features in an online medicine delivery app. We have divided our list into four sub-categories:

1. End-user module
2. Delivery Module
3. Medicine Inventory Module
4. Pharmacy Admin Module

End-User Module

The front-end of your app is what your app users will interact with. Make sure that the UI is very intuitive and user-friendly.

• Customer Profile: Login form, Gmail, Facebook integration for user authentication and profiling.
• Add to Cart: Allows users to select and save medicine to cart.
• Advanced Search and Filter: Let’s users search medicines based on brand, prices, ratings, delivery time, and radius.
• Order with Prescriptions: Lets users upload scanned copies of prescriptions for placing orders.
• Generic Alternatives: Let’s users find generic alternatives for out-of-stock medications. 
• Notifications: For order confirmation, status updates, and timely alerts on special deals, discounts, etc.
• Payment Gateway: For secure in-app payment. (Don’t ignore cash on delivery options for those users who don’t prefer online payment)
• Exciting Deals: Special banners and sections for exciting offers and deals.
• Purchase History: For users to track previous orders, details of stores, medicines, etc. Purchase history should also facilitate reordering the items
• Real-Time Tracking: Lets users track their order and shipment in real-time with information about delivery person name, mobile, customer ratings, etc. 
• Order Cancellation: Let’s users cancel the current order after sharing the appropriate reason behind the cancellation. 

Delivery Module

Whether one is delivering medicine or food online, on-time delivery is essential to business success. To do so you need to make excellent use of technology. Add these features to your delivery module and keep your app users happy all the time.

• Sign-in: For authentication and secure access. 
• Working Status: Allow delivery personnel to mark their working status.
• Delivery status: Set status to complete after delivering the medicine.
• Notifications: For alert on new orders. 
• Map View: For navigating delivery destinations on Google Maps with an estimated time of arrival.
• Route Optimization: To allow the delivery personnel to find the shortest possible minimal traffic path for on-time and hassle-free delivery.

Inventory Module

• Order Notification: Alerts medicine retailers about new order requests online in real-time.
• Order Management: For hassle-free order processing, returns, and refunds.
• Online payments: Receive online payments against orders
• Payment History: For tracking payment details in real-time.

Pharmacy Manager Module 

• Delivery Management: For accessing details of all users, invoices, and reviews.
• Inventory management: For tracking and managing inventory
• Notification: For auto alerts on out of stock, low stock, and expired medicines
• Profile Verification: To check previous purchase history, upload prescriptions, the health status of a particular user. 
• Cart Details: For checking active order requests, order details, delivery status, etc. 
• Analytics and Reports: For generating sales and earnings reports on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.

In-House Vs. Outsourcing Pharmacy App Development Company

Now that we have a basic idea of the important cost factor in online medicine delivery app development, let’s move over to another very important aspect of developing an online medicine delivery app. 

We assume that you have no substantial experience in custom application Development Company. In such a case, if you want to create the app on your own then you will have to start hiring an experienced team of medicine delivery app developers, designers, and project managers. Next, you will have to purchase new office space and along with that create a great workspace for your new team. All these things take time and are very costly too.

Plus, you have to stay on your toes all the time. You will have to work round the clock as well as take care of hiring challenges, team communication, delays, etc. Given that a lot of your time will also be dedicated to getting medicine retailers, logistics, and local authorities on board, it can be a challenge to manage everything on your own.

That’s where outsourcing steps in and takes all the weight off your shoulders. With your project now being managed by a third-party who has years of experience all you have to do is worry about the business end of things while the third-party developer works behind the screen to create your online medicine delivery app.