The retail chain will market parapharmaceutical products through the Internet.
This is sure to revive the war between pharmacies and supermarkets. The Carrefour brand announced that its “Drive” offer (purchase of groceries over the Internet and withdrawal at the counter) would “immediately” be enriched with parapharmaceutical products, available in the 51 withdrawal points participating in the operation.
From cosmetics to therapy?
Some 2000 references will be marketed there, most of them focusing on hygiene and beauty. However, the brand intends to invest in the therapeutic field, as much as it can. First aid products (disinfectants, cicatrizers, anti-warts, etc.), and others from herbal medicine and aromatherapy will be offered there.
The announcement comes a few weeks after that of E.Leclerc, whose president indicated that the parapharmacies of supermarkets were going to regroup within a website allowing the home delivery of parapharmaceutical products.
Probably anticipating the outcry regarding patient safety, Carrefour sought to reassure. Internet customers will be able to benefit from advice given “throughout the purchase journey” by telephone by doctors of pharmacy working in the hypermarkets and supermarkets included in the system.
The dematerialized sale of parapharmaceutical products and its juicy spinoffs particularly attracts the giants of mass distribution, which would see themselves selling prescription drugs, to the chagrin of pharmacies which currently hold the monopoly.
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