Michael Köhler
CEO and major shareholder, SHOP APOTHEKE EUROPE.
From the very first day when we started our company in 2001, our pharmacy simply followed one rule: Empower customers to find health and beauty products that help them to live and feel better every day. A broad range of products, fair prices, the best advice you can expect from dedicated trained pharmacists combined with best-in class functionality and an exceptional user experience. The pharmacy market had been dominated by fixed prices for decades, with many OTC and beauty and personal care products not affordable for many people. Our mission is to create high value for both our shareholders and our customers. For customers that simply means good value for money by having attractive prices that bring us one step closer to the democratization of health.
With our brand SHOP APOTHEKE we are clear market leaders in Germany and Austria for OTC and BPC products; we also launched SHOP PHARMACIE in France and Belgium successfully. In September 2016 we acquired the business of the Belgian online pharmacy FARMALINE. The seamless integration of the FARMALINE business in the fourth quarter 2016 enabled us to accelerate the expansion into Italy and Spain while further enhancing our market positions in Belgium, France and Austria.
Stephan Weber
CMO, Deputy CEO and co-founder SHOP APOTHEKE EUROPE.
SHOP APOTHEKE plays a pioneering role in a highly attractive market segment where growth is driven by the shift towards e-commerce as well as the steadily growing demand for non-prescription (OTC) medications and pharmacy-related beauty and personal care products.
We plan to further strengthen our market leadership and establish SHOP APOTHEKE EUROPE as the synonym for online pharmacies in Europe. Demographic change, growing health awareness and the trend towards self-medication are driving the demand for OTC medication and pharmacy-related beauty and personal care products. The ongoing trend towards online retail is positively influencing the growth of our markets in Europe, while at the same time our strong IT infrastructure and the country specific cultural know-how form a solid foundation to reach our goals.
Dr. Ulrich Wandel
CFO, SHOP APOTHEKE EUROPE.
Acquiring the Belgian online pharmacy FARMALINE in the autumn of 2016 was along with the successful IPO in Frankfurt a milestone in our internationalization strategy. In addition to strengthening our leading position in the Belgian and French markets: we also expanded simultaneously into Spain and Italy, two large Continental European markets, in just one step. The acquisition of EUROPA APOTHEEK has enabled us to further strengthen our European market leadership with an extended product range for the entire family as well as for chronic care patients who need continuous care with Rx drugs. This definitely strengthens our position as the leading European online pharmacy and is a solid base to continue our growth story in the future.
By investing in our IT, logistics and sales capabilities and capacities, we make sure that our key competitive strengths – excellent pharmaceutical consulting services and fast, low-cost delivery – will keep pace with our company’s ongoing development. At the same time, this enables us to benefit from economies of scale.
Theresa Holler
COO and responsible pharmacist, SHOP APOTHEKE EUROPE.
As Europe’s leading online pharmacy, we are always taking care to provide our customers with confidential and comprehensive advice. It is essential to us to provide safe and appropriate pharmaceutical products for our customers. Extensive pharmaceutical know-how is an important part of SHOP APOTHEKE EUROPE’s business strategy. Customers can always rely on our toll-free hotline where pharmacists and specially trained pharmaceutical experts provide individual recommendations. No matter whether a customer has a simple question about dry skin, or requires more information about his prescription medicine.
All our parcels with OTC or Rx medications include a personalized letter to the customer that describes potential pharmaceutical interactions. We ensure this high standard of pharmaceutical safety for our customers by using our comprehensive database on medications, their proper use and possible interactions with other medications. This database helps us to give individual recommendations to our customers and to provide them with knowledge that empowers them to better manage their own health.
Each prescription sent to us is checked by our experienced pharmacists who ensure that the ordered medications do not interact. If the expert team determines that two medicines might pose the risk of even a minor interaction, we inform our customers about this in a personal letter enclosed with the delivery. The Interaction Check also applies to our large range of over-the-counter medicines.
Following the initial Interaction Check, we conduct a second one in accordance with the four-eyes-principle – because four eyes see more than two.
Michaela Tünnermann
Pharmacist and her team.
Marc Fischer
CTO and co-founder SHOP APOTHEKE EUROPE.
As the largest online pharmacy in Europe, TECHNOLOGY is of the highest priority for us so we can best fulfil all future demands. That’s why we are continuously refining our technological infrastructure as it is crucial to make all of our processes run smoothly for the benefit of all stakeholders. We have the great advantage of being able to do that with our in-house team of experts.
At our pharmacy we are developing high-performance, perfectly interlinked e-commerce solutions that can be flexibly integrated and administered now and in the future.
Our technology platform, which is continuously developed and refined, makes it possible for us to quickly respond to the latest developments in e-commerce. The underlying service architecture enables us to rapidly deploy new features to further improve the customer experience.
Furthermore, it ensures fast and secure connectivity of partner systems and external solutions to our systems. Doing all of this in-house means we are independent of third-party companies.
Vincent Lammers
Product Manager, RedTecLab
It’s our way to work efficiently: Since the business world is changing faster every day, we decided to establish cross-functional teams to further boost our flexibility and agility: Our staff at RedTecLab works in small groups of five to ten people.
A team of highly qualified and motivated people completely own a product during its entire lifecycle: They don’t just create it but are also responsible for maintaining it.
As the specialist for prescription medicines we have a high number of patients who suffer from chronic diseases and who therefore regularly need their drugs, among our most loyal customers.
Professional advice is one of the keys to our success in building customer relationships. Our pharmacists and pharmaceutically trained specialists always take time to respond to our customers’ questions and concerns and advise them comprehensively and with the utmost discretion. Our team of experts from our pharmaceutical consultation department is available every Monday to Saturday, from early in the morning until late in the evening after people get home from work. How many pharmacies in Continental Europe have such long and convenient opening hours?
SMART, our special patient programme for chronically ill people in Germany is a unique service only offered by EUROPA APOTHEEK among online pharmacies. It is an important tool to improve patient compliance and further strengthen customer loyalty.
In addition to a wide selection of prescription drugs, you will find an equally large variety of OTC and beauty and personal care products at attractive prices.
Customer satisfaction is at the core of our work: That’s why we are very excited and proud of the results of the prestigious STIFTUNG WARENTEST consumer survey (November issue 11/2017). Among 18 mail order pharmacies tested, EUROPA APOTHEEK came out as number one, closely followed by SHOP APOTHEKE in second place.