Abstract
This paper analyzes the development of retail chain drugstores in China from 2003 to 2010 based on statistical data of ‘Chinese drugstores’ magazine. There are two developing trends in retail chain drugstores based on the total sales, the sales growth rate, the total number of branches, the growth rate of the total number of branches and the daily sales of branches of the top 100 retail chain drugstores in China. In the first trend, the business scale expands gradually, while, in the second trend, the speed of expansion becomes more and more slow. Further, we made a correlation and regression analysis. Results showed that the total sales and the number of branches of retail chain drugstores in China have a positive linear correlation and so does the sales and the business area. In contrast, the total number and the average sales have a negative linear correlation. According to this, we made a conclusion that blind expansion of branches is not always helpful for enlarging sale scale in increasingly competitive market. At last, we brought out two proposals to enhance the competitiveness and viability of retail chain drugstores in China. One is to improve the quality and intensity of patient medication instruction. The other is to set up an online pharmacy.
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