Acute shortage of Remdesivir injections is a concern: Gulshan Bhaktiani of Wellness Forever

(L-R) Mohan Chavan, Gulshan Bakhtiani, and Ashraf Biran, founders of Wellness Forever

Adar Poonawalla-backed Wellness Forever has witnessed high sales on the back of COVID-19. The pharmacy chain is, however, also struggling with several operational challenges as supplies of several essentials and high-in-demand medicines and equipment such as Dolo, Ivermectin, Doxycycline, oxygen concentrators and thermometers.

In a conversation with Moneycontrol, Gulshan Bhaktiani, Founder and Director, Wellness Forever, talks about a range of subjects: from the well-being of employees to store expansion to the troubles brought about by COVID-19, and more. Edited excerpts:

What are some of the challenges for pharmacy chains while operating business in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic?  

Operationally, it has been one of the most challenging periods. We are troubled as well as surprised. Our 4,000 employees have backed us and hence we have kept all the stores open day and night. However, given the uncertainty, the challenging parts are from the point of view of mental health, logistics and transportation. Our employees are interacting with COVID-positive patients. Their relatives are also visiting the homes of these patients, while delivering medicines. Though we have taken all precautions, there is still an underlying fear. We have given all our employees Rs 20 lakh insurance cover and even tried to get them vaccinated, but authorities are not convinced that they are frontline workers. While footfalls are high, it is very difficult to ensure that operations run smoothly.

Besides essential medicines, what are the other products or equipment in short supply?  

There is acute shortage of oxygen concentrators. We imported these products on time and provided them to some government agencies, but that is like a drop in the ocean. One of our biggest concerns is not being able to provide Remdesivir injections. We are getting a lot of calls every day and it is difficult for us to explain that we don’t have it. The pulse oximeter is also in short supply, as we do not manufacture them and are dependent on other countries. Though the shortage of Dolo, Ivermectin, Doxycycline, thermometers, Vitamin C tablets and steroids are not as acute, it is a hand-to-mouth situation for some of the other essential items.

Of late, several fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies are eying pharmacies to stock their products. Have you witnessed a spike in demand for FMCG products too?  

We had a non-pharmaceutical sale of 55 percent to begin with, and lately, we have seen at some places that the sale of consumer goods have gone up by about 4-5 percent. However, we are quite sure that this is reactive and will subside over time.

Has the pandemic halted your store expansion plans?  

Due to the restrictions, we had added only five stores from March to July last year, but since then we have launched 46 stores. Currently, we have 225 stores and plan to add 100 more stores this year. The plan is to close the current financial year with over 400 stores and then in the next three years, take it to 1,000 stores.

We will continue to focus on Karnataka, Maharashtra and Goa for the new launches as we would like to grow contiguous with our warehousing system and serve these three states better than just trying to establish a presence on the map. There is ample space for us to grow in the geographies where we are already present.

You have been trying to build an omnichannel presence for a while now. Has the pandemic given a push to this initiative?  

Sales from the digital channel are skyrocketing and while in the first phase we were not as prepared, we have since then corrected all the issues, and currently, we get about 10 percent of our overall sales from it. However, we are clear that we want to focus on a hyper-local model and build an omnichannel presence and we are not playing the discount commerce game. Since we are trying to tap the hyper-local, expanding our footprint becomes important.

Which are some key categories that you are trying to tap by launching private labels?  

We are focusing on herbaceuticals, nutraceuticals, and other categories related to wellness. We are also looking at categories that will be relevant for ‘tomorrow’s consumers’ such as precision food, precision medicine, and even cosmetics.

At Wellness Forever, our customers are not discount seekers, they are aspirational consumers and we offer them premium products under our private label that we import from other countries and some that we manufacture ourselves. We started our private label journey about five years ago and today it contributes about 15 percent to our sales.