17.06.2021
“ROSN” has launched a service of road pharmacies “Pharmacy Auto” in St. Petersburg on the basis of gas stations. The project is currently being implemented in a pilot mode together with the pharmacy chain “Aloe”. “Gazprom Neft” also plans to open pharmacies at gas stations.“Rosneft” has launched a service of road pharmacies “Pharmacy Auto" on the basis of gas stations, where over-the-counter medicines and non-medicinal drugs will be sold. The project is implemented jointly with the federal pharmacy network “Aloe” (more than 300 pharmacies).
The service has been launched in pilot mode at two gas stations in St. Petersburg. In the near future, pharmacies will appear at two more gas stations in the Leningrad region. The gas station's sales halls were reconstructed taking into account the requirements for equipment, storage conditions and sale of medicines.
“Rosneft” is the operator of the largest retail network in Russia (about 3 thousand gas stations). Raiffeisenbank analyst Andrey Polishchuk believes that Rosneft's and Aloe’s initiative will be relevant on high-traffic highways where there are no pharmacy outlets in the immediate vicinity of gas stations.
“Lukoil” (about 2500 gas stations), “Gazprom Neft” (about 1400), “Tatneft” (more than 600) and “Surgutneftegaz” (about 300) also operate the largest gas station networks in Russia. “Gazprom Neft” informed the publication that in 2021 the company plans to launch a pilot project to open pharmacy outlets at several gas stations in the Moscow region. Based on its results, the company will decide to create similar points in other regions. “Lukoil”, “Tatneft” and “Surgutneftegaz” did not respond to Vedomosti's requests.
Investments in the opening of a pharmacy at a gas station can amount to about 500 thousand rubles, and sales (excluding the work of online pharmacy delivery points) during 3-5 months after the launch can reach the level of 15-20 thousand rubles per day, says Mikhail Burmistrov, CEO of Infoline Analytics.
According to him, the prospects of increasing revenue to 30-40 thousand rubles per day will be associated with the launch of an online pharmacy delivery point, which will most effectively monetize traffic and compete with conventional pharmacies.
The article was prepared by a medical journal “Pharm Vestnik”.