Market Overview

The domestic ecommerce (B2C) OTC drugs (nonprescription drugs and newly designated quasi-drugs) market size in 2020 based on the shipment values at manufacturers was estimated as 56,200 million yen. The reasons of the growth by 12.2 percent from the previous year was the recent expansion of the entire ecommerce market and increasing demand for contactless shopping experiences as well as decreased opportunities for consumers to go outside in the COVID-19 calamity.

The market is expected to continue growing even after 2021. While the entire domestic OTC drugs market is likely to level off or to slightly increase to a little more than 80 million yen, the ecommerce for OTC drugs can be said as a promising sales channel to grow furthermore for the future.

Noteworthy Topics

One-Stop Online Pharmacies as a New Platform

New services have emerged to enable consumers to purchase OTC drugs while consulting a specialist online, or to enable everything from online medical treatment, online drug administration guidance to receiving the prescribed drugs delivered at home. In addition to the above, some companies provide accurate medical information on their web pages, supervised by the specialists.

These services are suggestive of online pharmacy being a new platform that plays both roles of a trading platform of various medicines and of a healthcare platform where people can consult a specialist or obtain necessary information. Not only purchasing of medicines, but online pharmacy also has the function of medical expertise such as enabling people to consult a specialist or letting them acquire reliable professional information, etc. By being a partner in the medical and healthcare field, it has a potential of building a close and long-lasting relationship with customers.

Future Outlook

The domestic ecommerce OTC drugs (nonprescription drugs and newly designated quasi-drugs) market size is projected to grow by approximately 8 percent during the next three years. Because the ecommerce rate of OTC drugs used to be low until recently, the market is expected to expand until the ecommerce sales rate of OTC drugs reaches a certain level, whilst the entire OTC drugs market facing sluggishness.

Research Outline