Technology in Pharmacy Business with Scott Carpenter

Bringing Pharmacy Sellers & Buyers Together

February 25, 2022

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In this episode of Pharmacy View Podcast, host Scott Carpenter, EVBC is joined by Kev Ryan, Lead Advisor at pharmacy.forsale, a platform that facilitates the listing and selling of pharmacies globally, without any involvement of brokers and payments of commissions. The platform acts for buyers who can connect with sellers in a private and off-market fashion via its member-only marketplace.

Kev is a tax accountant by trade and over his career, he has worked all across Australia. Talking about the platform, he talks of how he thought of it as being an interesting space after having interacted with his accounting friends with predominantly Pharmacy clients and after having watched Pharmacy transactions from afar. He adds that he is new to the industry and seeing it with fresh eyes made him realise the need for a marketplace that would cater to both sellers and buyers without having to depend on a broker. For that reason, his goal was to build an industry specific technology platform to help people transact. He calls it a tool to engage the buy side clients because the sell side is already well represented in the market.

Kev emphasises that key target audience are the young Pharmacists who otherwise don’t have access to the deal flow. The baton needs to be passed from the older and wiser Pharmacists to the younger ones, he believes, as that would help community Pharmacies survive in the future while the threat of bigger groups monopolizing the industry loom large. That doesn’t take away from the fact that the platform is meant for anyone who is genuinely interested in making a deal.

By using the platform and its methodology:

Buyers, Sellers and Accountants can all register to gain lifetime access to the market-place
Sellers can list their Pharmacy for sale to a broad audience (at no cost whatsoever)
Buyers can view key metrics and Pharmacy descriptions before making an offer
Genuine Buyers can connect with the Seller and proceed with the deal

To achieve the goal, incorporation on technology in the platform is vital. Technology used in the platform serves the following purpose:

Sellers can list their Pharmacy for sale. They can increase their audience and don’t have to deal with a broker. This means that they can assess the best price for their sale and won’t even have to pay commission.
Buyers can review the key metrics of listings and make direct enquires to those matching their acquisition criteria. The buyers need to pay $180 plus GST when they want to transact through the platform. Doing so ensures that only genuine buyers are entertained.

Utilizing the technology allows the data to be shared, manipulated and understood so that people can quickly determine whether or not they are interested in a transaction. Because it happens inside a private marketplace, it facilitates anonymous information exchange among the members. Talking about confidentiality, Kev emphasises that the communication is in a closed like-minded audience of buyers and sellers that are serious about transacting.

In the end, Kev concludes by saying that the platform aims to do what’s best for the end users and that is: the support of qualified and caring Pharmacists.

Topics Covered

Bridging the Gap Between Sellers and Buyers
Journey of a Seller
Journey of a Buyer
Need to Support Young Pharmacists
Doing What is Best for the End User

Key Quotes (Time Stamps)

“We are looking to build a number of industry specific technology platforms to help people transact.” (3:43 – 3:53)

“To avoid, I guess, being a me-too type product in a well-established arena where traditionally Pharmacists have been represented on the sell side, we thought there was an opportunity to help people on the buy side. Well, ‘pharmacy.forsale’ is a tool we use to engage our buy side clients. The whole idea of it really was to allow a younger generation of Pharmacists access the deal flow.” (4:12 – 4:39)

“If you’re going to spend millions on a Pharmacy and you can’t invest $180 at the start, you’re simply not serious. So, the platform’s not for everybody. It’s for those that actually want to transact.” (12:55 – 13:06)

“I guess one of our value propositions to sellers is that this isn’t information going on the ether; it’s within subscribed platform where we vet it as best as we can, of course. The communication is in a closed like-minded audience of buyers and sellers that are serious about transacting.” (15:56 – 16:17)

“It’s costing them nothing. So, there’s nothing to lose. There’s only upside here of putting your pharmacy on our platform and getting more eyes on the deal.” (17:38 – 17:47)

“If we can’t support some of our young buyers, community Pharmacy will end up with five big corporates; there’d be no guild because it won’t have any members and people won’t know their Pharmacists. Knowing people by name would be a thing of the past.” (22:37 – 22:54)

“We are questioning the rules around Pharmacy ownership and we think they should be equal. At the moment, as an outsider looking in, bigger groups are hiding behind tricky structures, possibly importing labour—these are the commercial things happening. And I don’t know if that’s good for the future of this industry.” (25:22 – 25:42)

Social Media Clips (Time Stamps)