Recently, Jainam Shah, a Head of Marketing at eVital had an opportunity sit down with Mr. Deepak Shah, owner and Chemist at Mallinath Medical Store, located at Sabarmati, Ahmedabad. He was also joined by his son, Sachin.
Purpose for interview was to learn more about community pharmacist has been and continues to be integral part of society and critical to provide quality healthcare services to patients.
If you are Chemist or own a Medical Store, visit www.evital.in/chemist to join the platform for free and offer Online Pharmacy services to your patients.
Jainam: Please tell us about yourself and Mallinath Medical Stores.
Deepak: My name is Deepak Shah, and I am the owner of Mallinath Medical Stores. I was born and raised in Sabarmati, Ahmedabad. I got into Medical Stores business about 33 years ago, as my uncle owned a store in Sabarmati and he trained me. Then, I started Mallinath Medical stores about 7 years ago and I also have my son, Sachin helping me with work on full-time basis.
Jainam: Do you own any other Medical Stores besides Mallinath? How many people full-time you employ?
Deepak: I also started Khara Medical Stores, also in Sabarmati, about 2 years ago. Between two stores, and besides myself and my son, I also have two full-time employees.
Jainam: Give us the Idea about scale of the business, and let’s focus on one location, that is Mallinath Medical Stores for now.
Deepak: At Mallinath, we serve about 600–700 unique patients every week. About 30% of whom are first-time customers who are patients of OPD service at Pukhraj Raichand Hospital.
Jainam: Do your customers know you personally? Do you know them on personal basis?
Deepak : Absolutely. I would say, at any given time, more than 40% of customers are such that I know them on first name basis and I even remember the medications they are on, for most of them. I think healthcare is one of the few domains left, where personal connection is still required in a sincere manner.
Jainam: What part of your work makes you proud about yourself? What motivates you to come to work?
Deepak: Honestly, I have never tried any other work since the beginning of my career, however, I do believe that helping patients getting genuine medicines with personalized service and advice is something I look forward to everyday.
Jainam: Is there anything you don’t like about running a Medical Store?
Deepak: Nothing specific, however, from time to time I do feel that timing and inflexibility it offers is affecting my social life. For example, we have shop open 12 hours a day and 6 times a week. Even Sunday, we open it for few hours. This makes it hard for us to engage in social events and visiting friends/families bit difficult.
Jainam: Have you heard of Online Pharmacies and their success? How has it affected your business?
Deepak: I have. And, I am not shy about admitting that it has affected our business. However, as I mentioned secret to our success is mostly personal relationship and patient service, we have still maintained our edge.
Jainam: Is there something Mallinath Medical Store offer that you would like community to know?
Deepak: Not exactly related to business itself, but we do organize a group of Medical Stores who help get Medications for free or either at cost for our religious leaders in Sabarmati. This include, mostly Jain community, but we are open to serve any religion/community in a similar way. If you know a religious leader, who needs their medication, feel free to contact us to learn more about the program.
Jainam: But, what are views on implementing new technology in this business over all?
Deepak: I truly believe, technology is mostly good for us and it helps us improve our life style. I also believe online ordering platforms and payment systems are future of almost every services. Following this thought process, I was one of the first adopter of eVital Portal.
Jainam: What is eVital Platform in your terms?
Deepak: EVital is an online platform, that any pharmacist can join for free and takes less than 24 hours to be approved. Being part of eVital platform, allows any Medical Stores to offer Online Pharmacy services to their patients.
Jainam: Is there anything else you would like to tell us about your business and path going forward?
Deepak: With help of my son, I am taking new initiatives of implementing technology into our business. We didn’t connect with people 5 years ago, like we do now. So why run a Medical Store now, like we did 5 years ago. Although, patient care and services are truly irreplaceable.
Jainam: Thank you very much for your inputs and time, Mr. Shah.
Deepak: Thank you for giving me the opportunity to become part of your community at eVital.
To contact Mallinath Medical Store to pick them as your preferred pharmacy, please feel free to call at: +91 95583 32029
To learn more about eVital Platform, visit www.evital.in
