By Karen Palmer
A cyberspace version of the Glebe Apothecary launching early next month will make the Bank Street pharmacy one of the only drugstores that’s accessible in Centretown, Saskatoon or even Sydney, Australia.
The online Glebe Apothecary — one of the only operational pharmacies on the ’Net —will offer the same products as their Ottawa location, but without crowded aisles, squeaky shopping carts or the inconvenience of walking outside, says Doug McKeen, the pharmacy’s managing director.
It’s another option for cold and flu sufferers too sick to get out of bed, or Snowbirds who exhaust their prescription before the Florida time-share expires, he says.
The Apothecary site, located at www.apothecary.on.ca, began four years ago as a hobby, but grew to include a handful of items for sale on the page.
E-mails and inquiries prompted owners to expand the business side of the site.
“Even in its infancy it had potential,” McKeen says.
“So we got serious about it and decided to put some time, energy and money into it.”
By November, online shoppers will be able fill “shopping baskets” with their choice of more than 4,000 products.
Eventually the site will offer some 10,000 drugstore-type products, like sunscreen, vitamins, holitistic echinacea and toothbrushes, that can be paid for online and delivered anywhere worldwide.
The cyber-Glebe Apothecary has already been labelled by Industry Canada as an e-commerce success story.
Frances Phillips, senior associate at Connaught Communications, compiled the list of Canada’s top e-commerce sites for Industry Canada, a task she described as being “like searching for 34 needles in a haystack.”
She says sites were chosen based on their commercial possibilities, not their bells and whistles, and the Apothecary site made the list for its ability to order products online, and its pioneering in the area of e-commerce.
The site attracts mostly Americans looking for products at lower Canadian prices, says McKeen, but the pharmacy is looking to serve a more local audience with the expanded site, while still retaining the American clientele.
While five to six daily orders can bring in more than $3,000 a year for the small drugstore, the Canadian Bankers’ Association calculates that online sales have the potential to bring in $435 billion U.S. in sales worldwide by the year 2002.
Phillips says more and more small business owners are testing out the earning potential of the Internet by posting e-commerce sites.
“They’re starting to see how much sense it makes,” she says. “We didn’t hear from one (online entrepreneur) who wished they hadn’t done it.”
McKeen says they planned their cyberspace launch for more than a year, and hired three new employees to help set up the site and register marketable items in a database.
Dealing with banks to produce a secure system for transferring credit card information has been slow, but a system will be up and running by the time orders start pouring in, he says.
Sharon Wilks, communications officer with the Canadian Bankers’ Association, says banks — like consumers and entrepreneurs — are interested in ensuring credit card information transferred over the Internet is handled safely.
Fears of lax security over the Internet has been identified as one of the biggest barriers to e-commerce.
“People need to treat these transactions like they would any other transaction,” says Wilks. “There’s no more danger and no less danger than handing your credit card over in a store.”
Wilks suggests Internet shoppers investigate a business’s site and its business practices before placing orders. She recommended reading the site’s posted commercial policies to ensure they meet the expectation of the customer.