How To Make Money Online as A Pharmacist Without a Pharmacy in Nigeria

7 March 2022

Every pharmacist can’t own their pharmacy. Most will work for existing companies as a locum, superintendent, and other positions you can think of. Besides, to be honest, that you are a licensed pharmacist does not automatically translate to you knowing how to run a pharmacy business. They are two different things entirely.

Business owner or employee, what is important is that we make money and increase our revenue. In this short article, I have analyzed what you can do as a pharmacist to increase your revenue without necessarily starting your own retail pharmacy. 

Now let’s run through a few points on what to do for people to discover you and how you can monetize the traffic. 

Start Where You Are

Right there. Yes, start right where you are. If you are reading this article, you most likely have a smartphone and access to the internet (web and social media), then you are on the right track. Make the internet your playing ground, start where you are. 

Share Meaningful Content

One thing I tell a lot of Pharmacists is that they need to put themselves out there. Now is not the time to live in the shadows. It is important that you leverage the media. Let your voice be heard and your face be seen. After 5 +X years in a Nigerian university, coupled with internships, NYSC, you deserve to maximize your knowledge and experience and let it generate revenue for you. 

I will be sharing case studies of young Nigerian pharmacists who are currently online and are beginning to have a massive audience because they keep sharing useful medical information. Sign up for my newsletter so you don’t miss it. 

Create relevant content on different topics using different mediums. Video, Text, Graphics, and so on. What separates you from other health content creators out there is not just the quality of the content but the frequency and style of delivery. What you say and how you say it! No topic is off-limits, talk about everything. Be the health expert you have been trained to be, let the internet be your audience. 

Set up Your Consultation Page

As a licensed pharmacist, you are a professional. It means people should be able to seek you for medical-related help that’s within your capacity to advise. If you think it is beyond your capacity, then refer them to a hospital or a more senior colleague. You don’t need anything fancy for your consultation page, the consultations can happen in the DM on Instagram, Twitter, Whatsapp, or whichever platform you and your audience are on.  

There’s a dermatologist on Twitter who has been sharing content for months, now she charges for consultation because she has shown people she understands her craft. Because people care about their health, they want to know more, so they book her for consultations. Now, she’s beginning to speak at conferences and seminars, which of course, aren’t free. 

The secret to growth on Social Media is people. The first barrier most pharmacists are faced with is not having enough audience or followers on Social Media… But the truth is, you always have enough audience to start. As long as you have a network of relationships, then you have an audience… Deliver quality value and watch the same set of “small audience” push you to the world. Good value always attracts people. You just have to be consistent. 

Help People Find Their Medication 

Help people find medication and make money while doing it. As a pharmacist, you are definitely in the best position to help patients look for their medicines using digital tools at your disposal.

Every day Nigerians are looking for life-saving medications, sometimes OTCs just so they can use and get better. Statistically, 4 in 10 Nigerians who walk into a pharmacy won’t get the exact medicine they need, and you can testify to this if you have ever worked in a community pharmacy. Can you remember how many people you have turned away because the drug is not available? 

Covid accelerated a lot of things in the last 2 years, not just in Nigeria but in the world at large. But long before Covid, the medicine supply chain has always been an issue in the country. Today, it is still in chaos, nothing has really changed. Before Covid, people visited multiple pharmacies just to fulfill their prescriptions or even look for a supplement, and today, they still do, but right now, they don’t only visit pharmacies, they also go online to look for drugs. 

Now, imagine for a second that you are quite the popular pharmacist in your online community and quite a number of those people looking for medicines are connected to you directly or indirectly through the internet. Where do you think they’ll first go to when they need medicine? You are right, they’ll come to you. 

One of the digital tools you can use for this purpose is Virtual Rx. It pays you commissions per completed order. All you need to do is use it to make requests for medicines. Once the recipient gets their item, you get credited your commission, and the payout is weekly. It is as high as 40%. You can check out Virtual Rx on Google Playstore for now or visit their website virtualrx.com.ng

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