Thulasi pharmacy: Venturing into online sales

Abstract

It was October 2020 and Thulasi Pharmacy had just opened its 69th store in Pattukkottai, a town in the Thanjavur district, in the state of Tamil Nadu. This was Thulasi’s first store set to operate in the franchisee model. It managed to operate all its previous 68 stores by itself but the founders’ yearning for growth and the need to make Thulasi a household name necessitated expansion via a franchisee model. Thulasi had come a long way since its first store in 2001. From struggling to convince stockists and the retail pharmacists’ association to allow it to sell medicines at a discount, Thulasi evolved to become a 69-store strong retail chain spread across the four southern states, setting the standard for pharmacies to sell medicines at a discount. Despite crossing several humongous milestones, Mr. Ramakrishnan the CEO of Thulasi Pharmacy, still felt a lot more could be done. With unyielding passion still burning inside him, and a vision to provide Indians with a world class pharmacy experience at the lowest price possible, Ramakrishnan was contemplating on whether expansion into the E-Pharma industry should be Thulasi’s next big move.