Dr. Kaske Marketingberatung in Munich, which focuses on mail-order pharmacies and the pharmaceutical and healthcare industry, has found in an analysis that since the Corona crisis period, with an increase in demand from insecure customers for many drugs and OTC preparations, the mail-order business has increased prices, in some cases drastically. Increased demand and in some cases scarce supply led to sharply increased prices, according to the analysts‘ conclusion. A pharmacist from NRW has also already noticed this, who has observed the mail-order competition on the Internet. According to this, special offers from mail-order companies are now only a few cents below the list price, as the example of the Bronchipret product shows. Some prices of various drugs are even significantly higher than the previous year’s value, such as paracetamol from Stada with a plus of 75 percent, Sterillium with 52 percent, Grippostad 27 percent higher, Unizink 26 percent. The list could go on and on. Customers researching via search engines such as Google Shopping or Medizinfuchs may be annoyed by prices that are 17 percent and nine percent higher on average. If they order directly from the shops of the major mail-order companies, the prices are „only“ seven percent higher on average. For this purpose, the prices of the ten most popular OTC products of the five leading mail-order pharmacies were evaluated. Amazon took the cake under the keyword „profit-taking“, because the online giant charged ten times the price of 20 euros for Sterillium, which was nevertheless sold out after two days, instead of two euros, as it did via the provider Praxisdienst für Ärzte. But not only stationary pharmacies are struggling with the availability of preparations due to supply bottlenecks, but also the mail-order business because some products such as Monapax against chesty cough or Sab simplex against flatulence, a remedy against migraine, etc. are practically not available.
