text: Online pharmacy 1mg, now majority owned by Tata Group, aims to bring express delivery— within an hour—of medicines to consumers, according to reports today.
  1mg has already started delivering medicines in 4-5 hours of placing an order in parts of New Delhi and Gurugram and will augment the service into an express delivery vertical across the country, the sources said.
  1mg express medicine delivery rollout begins
  While this would be one of the first significant product roll outs from 1mg after the Tata deal, on-demand delivery of medicines within an hour or two has been a tough space to operate in due to the increased cost of operations and average lower ticket sizes of orders.
  According to industry insiders, the average order size on e-pharmacy platforms is Rs 1,200-1,500 while the same would be Rs 600 for express delivery. It could be even lower if the platform doesn’t have a minimum purchase size filter.
  E-pharmacy, e-diagnostics, and teleconsultation are critical segments in this ecosystem and have been among the fastest-growing segments in this space, as this sector enabled access to healthcare through the pandemic. The overall market is around $1bn and expected to grow at ~50% CAGR driven by increased health awareness among consumers and greater convenience. This category will form a key element of the Tata Digital ecosystem offering.