Online pharmacy Netmeds to open 12 more fulfilment centres

CHENNAI: Online pharmacy Netmeds.com said on Thursday it would increase its reach to a total of 26 fulfilment centres in metros and Tier II cities in the country by 2020, in an effort to facilitate last-mile delivery of medicines in both rural as well as urban areas.
Currently, Netmeds has 14 such centres across the country, which include three centres in Chennai and the rest in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Pune, Noida, Lucknow, Raipur and Guwahati.
The startup’s largest such facility is currently in Hyderabad and Kolkata, both spanning 25,000 square feet each, with each of the cities processing around 100,000 orders every month.
“Our goal is to make medicines affordable and accessible to every Indian, and to reach even the most outlying corners of the country,” Netmeds.com founder and CEO Pradeep Dadha said.
“Through these centres, medicines are readily available, allowing us to process and deliver orders quickly and efficiently, thereby reducing the overall turnaround time even in the most underserved areas,” he added.
Netmeds.com recently established master warehousing facilities in Delhi NCR and Mumbai followed by four more support centres in Tier II cities -- Indore, Jaipur, Patna and Chandigarh.
Dadha expects that the newer and bigger warehouses will give the company more control and scalability of its supply chain. The company claims a three-fold increase in sales in the last fiscal year and said a large portion of these orders were also coming from Tier II and Tier III cities.
The startup reports serving more than 3.7 million customers in more than 610 cities and 19,000 pin codes across the country. Netmeds has employed more than 500 pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, customer service specialists and others for its venture.