Website Purposes (drugstore.com)
To provide an online platform to reach out to people all over the world with lower prices than their competitors
Business Model
It is a business to consumer model. However, in order to offer cheaper alternatives from their competitors, drugstore.com actually does business-to-business transactions to ensure the lowest price possible to consumers. They also source for promotional offers offered by their competitors and try to offer even lower prices. This makes sure that the prices are being reviewed and updated constantly. They make use of ACNielsen's Strategic Planner to check on prices of both chain and independent drug stores regularly.
Payment Scheme
The payment options are Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, JCB, Diner's Club, or Bill Me Later.
Bill me later is a secure payment method that is tailored for purchases over the net and over the phone. It provides consumer a payment method without the hassle of filling up applications for the details of one’s credit card. A billing statement will be mailed to the consumer there after.
There is also Google check out and pay pal alternatives. Google check out allows purchases in drugstore.com to be charged to one’s Google account and hence payment is made to Google Payment Corporation and so drugstore.com would not be able to keep track of the consumer’s credit card number.
Pay Pal allows anyone with an email to make online purchases without a credit card. This prevents the recipient, drugstore.com in this case, from viewing the details of the credit care or bank account.
Design
It has a simple layout with white being its background. Words with links attached are also underlined to enhance ease of navigating through drugstore.com. It also has clear headers for different categories of products for consumers to browse. Colors are mainly used on products and this give the website a neat and uniformed look.
Key Characteristics
They have a large range of products of different brands and yet are able to offer at lower prices from their competitors. This is a successful business model. The products are clearly titled and ingredients clearly stated so that consumers can make educated choices. Availability of the items are shown so that consumers can save the trouble of putting it into the shopping cart and then realizing that the item is out of stock when making payment.
To add on, they reach out to consumers from different age groups and different genders. They also jump in on the wagon of the upcoming events like Halloween and offer free shipping for Halloween costumes bought from them. They also give out free online coupons for consumers to enjoy savings. This ensures that consumers will keep coming as they feel that drugstore.com is committed to keeping prices low.
In addition they have a link named "sales” to allow consumers to check out all the top bargains they can enjoy at one click of the mouse. They even offer discounts for top sellers to bring in more revenue when consumers jump at these offers. They also provide five star reviews so that consumers can be well informed about the popular choices and try these items out. The five star reviews show the creditability of the items sold on drugstore.com and reflect the quality of the products. This gives a safe mind to consumers.
Under pharmacy cateorgy, they have medication available at relatively cheaper prices than elsewhere. It is a U.S. licensed pharmacy. They have a pharmacy located in Swedesboro, NJ where all medication is mailed from to the consumers. An account has to be created in order to purchase items from the pharmacy. This ensures the safety and health of the consumer that is purchasing the items. The account can then be used to set out a prescription. After the prescription has been set out, the consumer can carry on to his or her purchase and shipment can be done after payment has been made.
They even provide recommendations after an item has been added to the shopping cart. This provides consumers with choices similar to the item placed in the shopping cart. This lessens the consumer’s time on browsing items that they are not interested in and instead, focuses on items that he or she is interested.
The shopping cart is reflected on the side of the site. This makes it easy for the consumer to keep track of the items that they have selected. The total sum is being worked out if one chooses to check out.
They also offer free shipping for non –prescription orders above 25 dollars. Consumers will therefore try to chalk up to 25 dollars worth of items to enjoy this offer and in turn drugstore.com can also enjoy more revenue. Pre shipping methods are available for perishable items to ensure that the items remain in good condition and quality when the buyer receives the items. This is done by allocated time slots set by the seller. This shows the commitment of drugstore.com to their customers.
One thing to note is that they only have one allocated area for banner ads. The banner ads will change periodically from one brand to another. As a result the website do not look cluttered and yet, there is maximum exposure to different brands. This is an innovative idea.
They also have a partner website called beauty.com, whereby more products at much discounted prices are available to consumers who frequent drugstore.com. This gives more choices and variety of products to consumers and the items selected in both sites are placed into one shopping bag to ensure convenience when making payment.
For health conscious consumers, they also have another partner website called revolutionhealth.com, whereby consumers can look through articles and better improve their health. It creates publicity for drugstore.com as it widens its own consumer net.
They also keep track of items left in the consumer’s shopping bag so that consumers who left and visit drugstore.com again do not have to re-select the items again should they want to continue shopping. This saves time for the consumers.
They also have a feature called Auto Delivery whereby they delivered the consumer’s specified quantity of his or her favourite products at specified intervals. This will enable the consumer to save up on the shipping costs. An added benefit is that it enables the consumer to cancel this feature anytime.
Critical Analysis
They have a scheme that provides consumer with dollars (credit) when they purchase items. However this is only limited to orders from United States and not international orders. This may limit the market for international consumers. Some of the payment options such as bill me later are strictly only for shipping within United States. Pay pal, a mode of payment are only limited for certain transactions, which limit the payment choices for some consumers.
