Magnit retailer has opened its first warehouse store to supply pharmacy products for online purchases, Interfax reports. The pilot dark store was launched in Krasnodar.
The warehouse store operates in accordance with the licensing requirements in force in Russia, in the format of a click&collect pharmacy. Its total area is about 250 sq. m. The dark store includes an online order assembly area and a sales hall for offline sales, as well as an administrative area. Customers ordering from the store have access to a wider range than in the traditional Magnit Apteka (“Magnit Pharmacy”): about 8,000 items, including prescription and over-the-counter medicines, dietary supplements, medical devices, health products, etc.
The company emphasizes that the dark store will provide delivery of online orders to about 30 pharmacies, which will be connected by the end of the week.
“The business model of dark stores has already shown its effectiveness in food delivery, now we want to test this hypothesis in pharma. The pilot pharmacy dark store will allow us to test operational processes and evaluate customer response, after which we will make a decision on scaling,” said Andrey Lukashevich, E-commerce Director at Magnit.
Earlier, Magnit launched cooperation with Uteka pharmacy marketplace. The pilot project involved 15 pharmacies in Moscow. It is noted that by the end of the year the number of outlets connected to the dark store in Moscow and the cities of the Golden Ring will reach 200. The company presented the range of Magnit Apteka on a partner’s site for the first time.
