Investigation and Analysis of the Current Operation Situation o f Online Drugstores in China / 中国药房

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE： To investigate the current situation and existing problems of online drugstores in China and put forward corresponding countermeasures and suggestions， so as to provide a basis for promoting and improving the standardization of online drugstores in China. METHODS： The number of online drugstores was counted by inquiring about the online drugstores in all provinces， autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government published by the “Public inquiry” column on the official website of the previous China Food and Drug Administration （CFDA）. According to the administrative division， stratified sampling of online drugstores was conducted. The website domain names of sampled online drugstores and their Taobao stores， Jingdong stores， Wechat public accounts， Wechat small programs and other platforms were retrieved to analyze their operation methods. At the same time， the online drugstores which actually had online trading behavior were investigated and analyzed from three aspects， including business scope， propaganda behavior and service behavior. RESULTS & CONCLUSIONS： A total of 693 online drugstores were obtained from the official website of CFDA， and the domain names of only 14 （41.2％） of 34 online drugstores selected by stratified sampling were their corresponding online drugstores. Other online drugstores had some problems， such as domain name could not be opened or was not related websites. There were 14 online drugstores dealing in drugs through their own websites， of which 12 also operated on third-party platforms such as Taobao， Jingdong and Wechat. The problems of 27 drugstores with online online trading behavior mainly included non-standard operating varieties， illegal sale of prescription drugs， disunity of qualification mark，false propaganda，untimely online customer service response and imperfect drug distribution system， etc. It is suggested that relevant supervisory and administrative departments strengthen supervision， standardize the management of domain names and trading platforms of online drugstores， and vigorously crack down on and control illegal online transactions. Online drugstores should improve their service levels， standardize their own website construction， improve the level of real-time customer service and drug distribution services， so as to improve the current operation situation of online drugstores in China.