Most community pharmacies in Nigeria already sell online in some form — a WhatsApp order from a regular, a photo of a shelf sent to a customer across town. The question is rarely whether to do it, but which of the four routes below is worth building on. They differ enormously in cost, in how long they take to set up, and in how much of your staff's day they consume.
1. Your own website
The route people think of first, and the one that most often stalls. A working pharmacy storefront is not a landing page: it needs a product catalogue, stock levels that stay accurate, a payment gateway, an order queue someone watches, and a way for customers to find it at all.
What it costs
A domain and hosting are cheap. The build is not, and neither is the part nobody budgets for — being found. A new pharmacy domain has no search authority, so for the first year the traffic you get is the traffic you pay for or bring yourself.
Who it suits
Pharmacies with an existing customer base large enough to drive traffic on its own, and someone in-house who can own the site. If your plan for traffic is “people will find us”, this is the route that disappoints most.
2. WhatsApp
The default, because it is already installed and customers already use it. Orders arrive as messages, you reply with a price, they transfer, you dispense. Nothing to build.
What it costs
Nothing to start, and a great deal of staff attention thereafter. Every order is a conversation. Prices get quoted from memory. There is no record of what was agreed beyond a chat thread, and reconciling transfers against orders at the end of the day is manual.
Who it suits
Everyone, as a supplement. It works well at low volume and gets worse as volume rises — the opposite of what you want from a sales channel. Treat it as a way to serve existing customers, not as a way to reach new ones.
3. Social selling
Instagram, Facebook and TikTok reach people who were not looking for you. That is their real advantage, and it is a significant one.
What it costs
Content, consistently. A page that posts twice and stops performs worse than no page. Budget for someone's time every week, indefinitely.
One constraint specific to pharmacy
Nigerian advertising rules restrict how medicines may be promoted, and prescription medicines in particular must not be advertised to the public. Product-by-product promotion is where pharmacies get into trouble. Posting about your pharmacy, your services and your opening hours does not raise the same questions.
4. Joining a network
You list what you stock on a platform that already has patients on it, and orders come to you. The catalogue, the payment handling, the order queue and — critically — the demand are someone else's problem.
What it costs
Commission on what you actually sell. The trade you are making is margin for demand and for not having to build or run any of it. Whether that is a good trade depends entirely on the rate and on whether the platform genuinely brings customers you would not otherwise have had.
What to check before joining any network:
- Is there a monthly fee? A fixed cost that arrives whether or not you sold anything changes the risk completely.
- When are you paid, and by whom? Settlement timing is working capital. “Within 30 days” and “next business day” are different businesses.
- Who sets the price? If the platform prices your stock, you have given up the lever that keeps you viable.
- Can you decline an order? If orders are auto-accepted on your behalf, you will eventually be committed to something you cannot supply.
- Does it reach your area? A national platform with no patients in your Local Government Area sends you nothing.
Choosing between them
These are not mutually exclusive, and the sensible order is usually the reverse of the one people attempt. Start with the route that costs nothing up front and brings demand you do not have to generate. Add social once you know what your online customers actually buy. Build your own site last, if at all — by then you will know whether the volume justifies it, which is not a question you can answer in advance.
The one thing worth avoiding is committing to a fixed monthly cost before you know your online volume. Almost every pharmacy overestimates it in month one and underestimates it in month twelve.
Where FillPrescript fits
FillPrescript is the fourth route. You claim your pharmacy with your PCN premises licence number, list what you stock, and receive orders from patients in your area — and requests, where a patient asks whether you can supply something and you reply with a price. You accept or decline each one, you set your own prices, and money lands in your pharmacy account the next business day. There is no setup fee and no monthly fee; a service fee applies only when you fulfil an order.
The honest version: it is a commission model, so it costs you margin on every sale. In exchange you skip the build entirely and you are not responsible for finding the customer. Read the full fee breakdown — including a calculator that shows what you net on a given order — and decide from the numbers rather than the pitch.