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My name is Marina (in recent years, more and more often – Marina Anatolyevna), I am 52 years old. I have a beloved family: a husband, a son, two little granddaughters and elderly parents. And my favorite job. My young colleagues are sure that people “of that age” should spend half their free time in the clinic, and half in pharmacies. It’s good that it’s not about me.
Until the age of 45, I had practically no pain at all: thanks to genetics and an active lifestyle. Now, however, health has to be paid more attention: the pressure is sometimes naughty, the joints ache for the weather. Pah-pah, nothing critical, but I don’t want to start myself. So regular check-ups for my husband and I have become the norm.
Why I don’t like pharmacies
As for pharmacies, I almost never go there. And never loved. Firstly, it’s a pity for the time: I always end up in the longest queue in the area, and if suddenly there is none, then the drugs the family needs will definitely not be here. I’m such a “lucky”.
Secondly, to be honest, I don’t feel like rubbing my shoulders with coughing and sneezing citizens. You never know what you will bring home in the end – medicines or infection.
And thirdly, in the pharmacy everyone hears everything. No, I stopped being embarrassed when buying contraceptives, even when there was no sex in the USSR. But publicly announcing at the checkout that you need funds, for example, from a fungus or indigestion, is not very desirable. Immediately from a bright stylish woman “out of age” you turn into some kind of ruin. And a couple of years ago, I remember, my daughter-in-law asked me to buy a pregnancy test on the way home from work (spoiler: that’s how we found out about the second granddaughter). You should have seen the way that pharmacy queue was looking at me!
Are there any options?
I have to replenish not one, but 3 first-aid kits at once: my own, my parents’, and even my son’s family – they and my daughter-in-law are always busy at work. In addition to medicines, I regularly buy all sorts of other things: a new blood pressure monitor for dad, vitamins for granddaughters, again, I love pharmacy cosmetics. Therefore, as soon as the opportunity arose, I tried to translate these worries online. At first, I just studied prices on the Internet, looked where it was cheaper: the prices for medicines differ, sometimes significantly, but running around different pharmacies, checking them on your own, is more expensive for yourself. And you will spend time, and extra money for travel.
Health at home: pros and cons
We have become addicted to delivery during the pandemic: how convenient it has become to order groceries at home for ourselves and our parents in parallel with working remotely or watching a movie. And when they were allowed to buy medicines in the same way, I rejoiced!
True, it was not immediately possible to adapt the new system “for themselves”. I started with orders in familiar pharmacy chains – almost all of them quickly acquired their own delivery. There are many advantages in this: if you already know which funds in this network are more profitable than those of the “neighbors”, it takes only a few minutes to order them. Again – the absence of queues, contacts with “sneezing” and the need to leave the house if you are sick yourself.
But there were also many nuances. Each network had its own rules. Somewhere the order was collected for several days, somewhere it was delivered for money, somewhere it was possible to pay for pills and so on only online, but I wanted to have freedom of maneuver. Now imagine: in one pharmacy there is the right medicine, but more expensive, but the delivery is free. And in the other – it seems cheap, but the delivery is for the money. The whole adventure is to find and take into account all these pitfalls.
Even easier and more convenient
Last fall, I saw the news that now you can order medicines on marketplaces. Decided to give it a try and got hooked. The pros are the same (and even more), but I still have not found the cons. A marketplace where you can choose medicines is not necessarily a separate site.
You can buy pills and everything else with delivery, for example, at Yandex Market – most often I take all the “medicine” there. This is very convenient: in the same “basket” I threw a book for the eldest granddaughter, cubes for the youngest, a set of towels for myself, well, and medicines for the whole family at the same time.
On the pharmacy showcase The market has medicines from many different pharmacies. Moreover, the same funds from different outlets are combined together. You can immediately see the range and prices of both most large chains and “single” pharmacies, see where the same package is cheaper. And order with all the convenience of modern technology – saving money and time.
3 good reasons to switch to buying pharmacy products online
Each of them I managed to evaluate on situations from my own life.
- Saving money. I repeat, the prices for medicines, dietary supplements, etc. are different in all pharmacies. I don’t even want to know why. But also to guess “What if it’s 200 rubles cheaper around the corner?” – too. And in the same Market, you can immediately see on the map in which pharmacies the necessary drugs are cheaper.
There’s another advantageous feature that came in especially handy when I discovered that my parents ran out of almost all of their daily pills at once. What they, traditionally, hesitated to warn in advance. There were two equally unhappy options: to buy everything in bulk at the nearest (and, this is not accurate) pharmacy with the risk of a hefty overpayment. Or save money, but spend the whole day collecting a set of medicines at different points around the city – where the prices for a particular drug are more profitable.
But there was another way – more convenient than others. There is a map on the Market where you can see in real time which pharmacies have any necessary drugs. You add medicines (including prescription drugs) to the cart and you immediately see where you can pick them up on the same day – right in the kit, according to the list! And most importantly, you can compare the cost of this entire kit in different pharmacies. Yes, somewhere one medicine can be a little more expensive, but another one is noticeably cheaper, and in the end you will calmly pick up your “basket” where its price (total amount) will be the most profitable.
- Convenience of choice. Who is not familiar with the situation: you say in the pharmacy “I need such and such pills.” And in response – “There are no pills, take candles.” Or even worse: “But they are no longer produced, take some, no worse.” And what is there to do? You won’t be standing in line, calling a doctor or surfing the Internet to see if this option is right for you.
Everything is easier online. For example, the Market has instructions for all drugs, as well as the opportunity to choose analogues for them (with the same active ingredient), get answers to questions and read reviews from other customers. The latter came in handy when I was looking for a replacement for a discontinued hypertension drug. The doctor advised two options, but everyone wrote about one that there were a lot of side effects, so I settled on the second.
Speaking of candles and pills. On the Market, all products can be sorted by release form: find only syrups with the desired active substance or only capsules. Or, look at all the options and choose the most suitable one.
- Actually, delivery. This is my favorite. I’m too lazy to go out or I’m sick (the joints ache or I just don’t want to cough on people in the pharmacy myself) – please, everyone will be brought directly to the house. Do your parents need medicine urgently? Considering that they live in the same city, but far from us, it’s faster for me to send pills to them by courier than to wade through traffic jams myself: on the Market, for example, express delivery arrives in 1-2 hours, including at night.