OPINION
Market share is determined by where and WHY customers spend their dollars. Chewy’s investment into telemedicine and compounding is yet another event in the ethical versus OTC dynamics of the animal health supply business. An extension of the historic catalog business, online pet supply options increase convenience, avoid visits to the veterinary clinic and are perceived as the most economical. True? Maybe. Maybe not. It depends on how you allocate costs and value of an individual’s time. Quality concerns? Always.
The state of online pharmacies will be the topic of a live event tonight, October 21, 2021, on The Bridge Club virtual platform. Link.
Source: Wall Street Journal, October 13, 2021, pay wall. Link.
- PDF copy without tables and graphs. Link.
INSIGHTS: The technological elements to this long-fought tug of war between veterinary supplied prescriptions and preventive pharmaceuticals and OTC fulfillment put an intriguing twist to the perceived dog fight. That twist is the ability of veterinarians to use the fulfillment capacity of a company like Chewy, earn margin, avoid in-house costs and maintain some semblance of control over what products pet owners are dispensed.