Even after you have gained great experience in the pharma industry, your experience will always be limited to either marketing or distribution. Both are very different operations and require completely different skill sets and expertise.
This is the reason why many Pharma marketing professionals who want to start their own Pharma PCD operations, prefer to appoint another stockiest and concentrate solely on marketing.
They do not mind paying a small part of their profits that they earn from the Pharma Franchise business to the stockiest because they feel that that is not where their expertise lies and they do not want to lose money in business. They also feel they will be more effective and will be able to sell more if that headache of distribution is handed to a good distributor.
But what are the qualities one must search for in appointing a Good PCD Pharma distributor?
- Area of coverage: The area of coverage of the stockiest should be more than or equal to the area that you want to cover for your PCD Pharma operations.
- Recovery and collection: The stockiest should be a well established stockiest having more than 4 or 5 ethical company distribution. This is important to make sure that chemists take him seriously and are particular about payment to this stockiest. A stockiest with only one single company has no bargaining power in front of the chemists.
- Financial strength: You should have such an arrangement with the stockiest that he is able to call for stocks on advance payment from the PCD Pharma company that you have chosen. A distributor who does not have good financial status will not allow you to freely call for goods at will. This is essential because when demand increases in the Pharma PCD market, that time you do not want to be out of stock due to financial problems.
- Good relationship: You need to have a good relationship with the stockiest so that he does not cheat you. The stockiest will have all the collection in his hands, and needs to keep only 10% percent of the retailer billing price and give the rest to you. For long term business, the stockiest should agree to keep transferring the balance to your account, else all hard work that you have put in your pharma franchise company will be wasted.