Investigation and Analysis of the Current Situation of Online Drug Sellers

Xu Guangwei ,Wang Shuling

(1.School of Business Administration,Shenyang Pharmaceutical University,Shenyang 110016,China;2.Computer Management Center,Shenyang Second Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine,Shenyang 110101,China)

Abstract Objective To provide reference for the relevant departments to train and manage online drug sellers.Methods A questionnaire was conducted among 124 grass-roots drug sellers from 13 online drug sales enterprises,including Tmall Medical Center and JD Home Health Channel and 265 teachers and students from 33 pharmaceutical colleges and universities.The problems were analyzed in this paper and some specific suggestions were made.Results and Conclusion 389 questionnaires were sent out and 371 effective questionnaires were recovered.The effective recovery rate was 95.37%.The universities surveyed mainly recruited undergraduates,accounting for 66.7% of the total.Most of the employees in the online drug sales enterprises surveyed graduated from secondary school or universities,accounting for 91.9%.The number of graduates surveyed who were willing to work in the online drug sales enterprises was low,accounting for only 8.67%.Besides,it was difficult for online drug sellers to be promoted,71.7% of the respondents had no promotion opportunities.In view of the main problems such as the low professional quality of online drug sellers,their low willingness to engage in online drug sales,and few promotion opportunities,it is suggested the reform of licensed pharmacists should be deepened to improve the number and quality of online drug sellers.Meanwhile,we should learn the advanced experience from developed countries.In addition,the income and welfare of the online drug sellers should be improved.Lastly,a unified management platform must be set up for online drug sellers by technical means.

Keywords:online drug seller;pharmacy;current situation survey

On August 26,2019,the newly revised“Drug Administration Law”was approved by the Twelfth Session of the Standing Committee of the 13th National People’s Congress.It has been implemented since December 1,2019.The revised“Drug Administration Law”has twelve chapters and 155 articles[1].Although some prescription drugs are allowed to be sold online,it has fully demonstrated that the development of online drug market in China has a long way to go.The online sales system for prescription drugs has not been established,which is due to the shortage of online drug sellers,imperfect basic infrastructure and management system.Therefore,it is necessary for the online drug sales industry to strengthen its training and management of online drug sellers.Besides,it should make the plan for the related infrastructure construction of online drug sellers from a strategic level.

The training and management of online drug sellers are the basic issues of pharmaceutical management,and they are also the focus of pharmaceutical management in the future.Therefore,by investigating the current industry practitioners and potential personnel of online drug sales,the existing problems are analyzed,and some corresponding suggestions are put forward to provide reference for the future development of the online drug sales industry and management of online drug sellers.

1 Object and method

1.1 Survey object and time

The objects of this survey are online drug sellers who participated in the“2019 training of smart medical Internet companies and related universities in a certain city”.These participants were surveyed through WeChat app.Among them,13 online drug sales enterprises including Tmall Medical Center,JD Home Health Channel,360 Good Medicine,Pharmacy Online Mall,and 800 Fang[2].Among the 124 people surveyed,32 were from human resource department,the rest 92 people were management personnel.A total of 33 universities with pharmaceutical majors were surveyed,including Peking University,China Pharmaceutical University,Fudan University,Zhejiang University,Shanghai Jiaotong University,Shenyang Pharmaceutical University,Sichuan University,Huazhong University of Science and Technology,Central South University,and the Third Military Medical University.The interviewees were teachers and students participating in the conference.Through the survey,we got the employment tendency and talent pool of some students related to online drug sales.This survey was automatically summarized by the Internet,and all the people knew the purpose of this survey and volunteered to participate in it.The investigation was finished in August 2019.

1.2 Content and method

Online drug sales personnel are people who obtain labor compensation by selling drugs through the Internet.They are a group of people in a new industry that has emerged in the developed e-commerce society.

The questionnaire was designed with reference to the Internet and related literature,which included 31 questions,such as the composition of the surveyed people and units,the students’ job-seeking intentions,employment situation,career development dilemma of online drug sellers,wages and salaries of the online drug seller,and suggestions for the development of the online drug sales industry.The questionnaire has investigated in detail the problems and status quo in the development process of -online drug sales staff from campus to industry.The questionnaire was released by the investigator in an app of the WeChat group,and the system was conducted anonymously.The results were automatically summarized after the statistics.Then,the results were put into the statistical software for classification and summary,and the counting data were expressed in numbers and percentages.

2 Results

The survey units included 33 colleges and universities,13 online drug sales companies,such as Tmall Medical Center,JD Home Health Channel.A total of 389 questionnaires were issued and 371 valid questionnaires were recovered,with an effective recovery rate of 95.37%.

2.1 Objects distribution and their professional background

2.1.1 Level distribution of surveyed institutions

Among the 33 universities and colleges in the survey,13 were first class universities,accounting for 39.4%,15 were second class universities,accounting for 45.5%,and 5 were ordinary colleges,accounting for 15.2% of the total.

2.1.2 Composition of online drug sellers in enterprises

A total of 265 people were surveyed in 13 online drug sales enterprises,among which pharmacists accounted for 11.3%,91.9% of the drug sellers had technical secondary degrees or bachelor’s degrees,and pharmacy-related majors accounted for only 23.8%.

2.2 Students’ job intention

Among the 265 teachers and students in the surveyed colleges and universities,214 were students.Among them,197 were willing to work in public hospitals,accounting for 92% of the total number of the students surveyed.20% were willing to work in pharmaceutical companies.But only 8.67% of students were willing to work in online drug sale companies.The main reason was that they didn’t understand this new industry,which meant universities and colleges lacked education for students in this field.

2.3 Career development of online drug sellers

2.3.1 The way of career advancement of network drug sellers in enterprises

From this investigation,it was found that no company had professional management of online drug sellers and plans for their career development.Only 28.3% of online drug sales staff in the 13 enterprises had the promotion opportunities and the other 71.7% did not have any upward channels at all.Besides,their salaries remained unchanged for several years.

2.3.2 The situation of further study for online drug sellers

Among the surveyed people,7 companies didn’t send any online drug sellers for further study in the past year,accounting for 53.84% of the total.Five companies sent one seller for further study,accounting for 38.46%.Only one company sent two people for further study,accounting for 7.6%.Most colleges and universities could provide opportunities for their further study,but they didn’t have specific training courses related to online drug sales.

2.4 The dilemma of talent development in online drug sale enterprises

2.4.1 Problems

92 managers in 13 online drug sale companies were surveyed,56 of whom mentioned this question,accounting for 60.87% of the total number.They believed that with the development of the online drug sales industry,the demand for relevant talents would increase,especially those licensed pharmacists with professional abilities.28.57% of them thought that the professional abilities of online drug sellers were insufficient to meet the development requirements for this industry in the future.

2.4.2 Suggestions for the development of online drug sales industry

21.1 % of the interviewees mentioned that the government should pay more attention to the online drug sales industry and have a top-level design.37.7%of the interviewees mentioned that it was necessary to improve the salaries of online drug sellers.

3 Discussion and suggestions

3.1 Discussion of the main problems

Through the investigation,the main problems of the current online drug sellers are in the following 4 aspects.

3.1.1 There is a shortage of online drug sellers with bad career development and irregular group management

Survey data shows that only 11.3% of online drug sellers are pharmacists of traditional Chinese medicine,indicating that online drug sellers don’t have professional backgrounds.The data also displays that 71.7% of online drug sellers have no opportunities to be promoted,indicating that their career development is obviously restricted.Online drug sales are a new industry in the Internet era and under the environment of large logistics,which has huge market and development potential.Strengthening the management of online drug sellers in the industry and creating excellent industry standards for them is of great significance to the healthy development of the online drug sales industry.

3.1.2 Online drug sellers have low professional competence and insufficient knowledge of relevant laws

Survey data shows that in the past years,7 companies didn’t send any people for further study,accounting for more than half of the total number of companies.Online drug sellers have few opportunities for further training.Besides,they lack Internet training and basic professional knowledge of drugs.It shows that the quality of employees is not high.Pharmaceutical-related industries attach great importance to safety requirements because they are directly related to the core interests of consumers,such as health and safety.Therefore,whether from the consultation before online drug sales,drug delivery and after-sales service,it is necessary for drug sellers to have high professional quality so as to ensure their own job and do a good job in selling drugs in the Internet era.

3.1.3 The treatment and status of online drug sellers are not taken seriously

The survey data shows that 37.7% of the respondents mentioned that they hope to improve the salaries of online drug sellers,indicating that they are not satisfied with the treatment and they look forward to greater improvement.As an important part of the pharmaceutical industry,it is of great significance to establish a sound treatment mechanism to ensure the reasonable flow of online drug sellers and the healthy development of the online drug sales industry.By solving this problem,an overall virtuous circle of the industry can be realized.While attracting more and better talents,the prosperity of the industry will also bring corresponding benefits to the sellers.

3.1.4 Lack of corresponding management standards and platforms

According to the survey data and based on China’s large market advantages,online drug sellers should be managed uniformly.Only by unifying management and linkage of talents can human resources be fully utilized,which will maximize the efficiency of the sellers.

3.2 Suggestions

Pharmaceutical sales personnel are the foundation in the development of the pharmaceutical industry,and the training and management of online pharmaceutical sales personnel are critical for the development of this industry.If there is no longterm strategic plan for the corresponding online drug sales system,the current problems will not be solved in time.China may miss the opportunity for the construction of relevant pharmaceutical talents and the huge market in related areas[3].Therefore,the following suggestions are made for the above problems.

3.2.1 Deepening the reform of licensed pharmacists and improving the number and quality of online drug sellers

On April 20,2019,Yang Wei,the director of the Licensed Pharmacist Certification Center of the National Medical Products Administration,conducted a series of investigations in Shanghai[4].Then Shanghai was required to strengthen research on the graded management and differentiated allocation of licensed pharmacist so as to take Shanghai as the pilot city to explore good practice and promote the experience to the whole country.It can be seen that the government has begun to attach importance to the hierarchical management of pharmacists in order to optimize,develop and allocate medical talent resources.Considering the large demand of practitioners related to online drug sales and the development of the entire industry in the future,it is recommended that the management system of licensed pharmacist should be reformed as a whole.Then,a new licensed pharmacist management system will be established that is demand-oriented and scientifically graded to standardize the online drug sellers.It can solve the problem of small number of pharmacists that has existed for many years for online and offline pharmacists.

The publication of online drug sales should be strengthened and the number of industry talents must be increased.In addition,national awareness of online drug purchase and the cultivation of online drug sales talents should be strengthened.Lastly,the sustainability of the online drug sales industry can be enhanced through the joint training of online drug talents by pharmaceutical universities and enterprises as well as the establishment of relevant official regulatory agencies.

3.2.2 Improving the quality of talents through learning and exchanges with developed countries

The exchanges with government agencies and industry associations related to online drug sales in the United States,Japan and other developed countries should be deepened.Besides,we can learn the advanced experience in their pharmaceutical systems and dispatch exchange groups.In addition,a special exchange day for online drug sellers should be established so that they can share their experience.We also can exchange medical-related international students to offer more opportunities for Chinese medical practitioners to have internships in developed countries.

A large number of professional talents can be introduced to improve the overall industry quality.Enterprises and colleges should introduce more experts,professors and other talents from developed countries to develop the relevant construction of China’s online drug sales industry.

The government has established a special leading group for the training and management of online drug sellers.It should coordinate the management of pharmaceutical-related talents and control medical insurance institutions,pharmaceutical enterprises,big data companies[5],pharmaceutical industry committees,pharmaceutical research and development institutions,and universities,etc.which attaches importance to the online drug sales industry from the top-level design.

The training of online drug sellers in emergency situations should be strengthened to improve the quality and capabilities of the entire industry.At the end of 2019,the Convid-19 epidemic that swept the world began to break out in Wuhan[6].China initiated the biggest lockdown in the history.Everyone stayed at home to prevent from being infected by the virus.Online shopping and online drug sales during the epidemic attracted everyone’s attention.In the epidemic,the significance of online drug sales industry for emergency has begun to emerge,creating the possibility for people to purchase drugs online under special circumstances.

3.2.3 Increasing the income and treatment of online drug sellers

Online drug sales require a high-quality logistics system as a guarantee.Based on the current perfect logistics system,combined with the full participation of online drug sellers,a mature and complete drug sales flow infrastructure can be established to improve the accuracy and convenience of online drug purchases.The platform of online drug sales should be connected with China Post,SF Express,YTO Express and other companies to lay a good foundation for establishing an online drug sales system.Specially certified drugs with the“Internet prescription drug”logo can be produced and a corresponding urban logistics warehouse center should be established.Then,some relevant drug management personnel and supervisory personnel for online drug sales will be sent to the center[7].The interconnection of drugs and talents in offline pharmacy and the drug warehouse center can improve logistics efficiency.

Besides,the government’s policy subsidies and support should be enhanced for online drug sellers.The medical insurance system can be connected to a unified big data platform to train and authorize online medical insurance-related talents.

3.2.4 Setting up a unified online drug seller management platform

Online drug sales appeared in the information age,so the management of online drug sales personnel must be rational and efficient in the form of information technology.By building a database,the unified management of China’s online drug sellers can be realized.

An emergency plan for the mobilization of practitioners related to online drug sales during the epidemic should be established so that the personnel in the“online drug sales talent pool”can be managed centrally,which maximizes the use of human resources[8].The city drug logistics warehouse center should have emergency reserves with professionals to manage them.Thus a direct management can be achieved during the epidemic.

The communication and interaction among governments,online drug sales enterprises and industry committees should be strengthened.By mobilizing resources of online drug sales personnel,the commercial operation of enterprises and trade associations will have a good effect on the development of online drug sales industry.

The cooperation between enterprises and universities must be enhanced.Pharmaceutical companies and Internet companies are more aware of society’s needs for online drug sellers.They can provide funds to colleges and universities.In return,colleges and universities will provide talents to companies,thus forming effective interaction.Besides,pharmaceutical enterprise can establish independent school in public universities to deepen mutual scientific research interaction.

The cooperation between enterprises and guilds should be strengthened.Through the coordination between the guild and the government,students’internship opportunities in pharmaceutical companies can be increased.